I Am In The Chair And Not In The Room

You have not missed an evening in two years.

That is true and it is the thing you would say if anybody accused you of anything, and nobody has accused you of anything, and you would still say it.

Home by six most nights. In the chair. There.

And you know. That is the part. Nobody has raised it and nobody is unhappy about it as far as you can tell, and you know exactly what those two years have actually consisted of, which is a man in a chair in a room where things were happening.

You could not tell me what was said on most of those evenings. You could not tell me what either of them was working on this month. You have been present at about eight hundred evenings and you have attended very few of them.

There is a line in a psalm about what is actually inside a presence, and it says more than the word usually carries.

In thy presence is fulness of joy

Here it is.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalm 16:11, King James Version)

In thy presence is fulness of joy. Look at what that sentence assumes.

A presence has contents. It is not an empty category meaning somebody is in the building. It is a place with something in it, and the psalm names what is in it.

You have been using a word that has contents in it, and Psalm 16:11 says in thy presence is fulness of joy rather than that presence means proximity. The Holy Spirit is the one who filled that word in a single clause, and once it is filled it cannot be met by a body in a chair.

Now the part that is easy to miss.

Fulness. Not some joy. Not a measure of it. The whole of it, and the psalm attaches that to being in a presence rather than to anything happening there.

Nothing in that verse is an activity. There is no event in it. The joy is in the presence itself.

You have been assuming presence needs something in it to count, and it is written that the fulness of joy is in the presence rather than in what goes on. The Spirit of God is the one who located the joy there, and He located it in a place rather than in a program.

And the last clause tells you about duration.

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Right hand is beside. Not across a room, not in the same building, beside.

You are being shown a position rather than an attendance, and His word says at thy right hand rather than in thy house. The Holy Spirit is the one who chose a word about being next to somebody, and next to is what a chair in the corner of a room is not.

What two years of the chair did

Now let me say what those evenings have actually been, because you already know and it will help to have it said out loud by somebody else.

They have had your body and not much else.

That is not a crime and nobody is charging you with anything. A man who is there in body every evening for two years has done something a great many men do not do, and it counts for more than nothing.

But it is not what the verse describes, and you have known that for about a year.

You have been doing the smaller half of a thing very reliably, and it is written that a presence has a fulness in it rather than an attendance record. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a man see the gap between two things that share a word, and the word has been hiding the gap.

And here is what nobody has said to you, which is why this has gone on.

They stopped expecting it. Not angrily and not in a moment. Somewhere in the first year they adjusted, the way people do, and the evenings reorganized themselves around a man in a chair who is not exactly in the room.

Nobody notices an adjustment like that while it is happening. Everybody notices it afterward.

You have been accommodated rather than accused, and Scripture names what a presence contains rather than what anybody says about its absence. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what a house did quietly, and a house does it without anybody deciding.

And one thing about why, said plainly and without a lecture in it.

A man who is worn out gets into a chair and turns off, and that is not laziness, it is the thing a tired body does when it finally stops. Two years of it becomes a shape, and a shape becomes how a house runs.

You are looking at a habit rather than a character, and it is written that the joy is in the presence rather than that anybody is at fault for a chair. The Spirit of God is the one who names a shape without condemning the man inside it.

Turn the chair

So here is what to do, and the first part is physical because this whole thing is physical.

Turn the chair. Actually turn it, so it faces the room rather than the corner or the television or wherever it faces now.

That is not symbolism. A chair pointed at people produces a different evening from a chair pointed away from them, and it does it without anybody having to try.

You are able to move a chair, and Psalm 16:11 puts the joy in a presence rather than in an intention to be present. The Holy Spirit is the one who uses a physical act to change something a decision cannot, and this is one of those.

And then give one whole evening to that room.

One. This week. Not every evening from now on, because that is a resolution and resolutions do not survive a tired Thursday.

One evening, in the room, facing them, with nothing else happening anywhere.

You are able to do one evening rather than a new life, and it is written that the fulness is in the presence rather than in the number of them. The Spirit of God is the one who gets a man through one of something, and the first one is the only one that is hard.

And ask one question about what they are actually doing.

Not how was your day. Something specific enough that you would have to know something to ask it, which means you will have to have noticed something first, which is the point.

You are able to ask about a thing rather than about a day, and the written word puts the pleasures at a right hand rather than across a room. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings up the thing worth asking about, and He brings it up on the way home.

And expect them to be slightly wary of it.

Two years of a shape does not come apart in one evening, and somebody might ask what is going on, or be a bit awkward, or make a joke about it. Let all of that happen and do not explain anything.

You are able to sit through the awkwardness of it, and it is written that the presence is where the joy is rather than that it arrives comfortably. The Spirit of God is the one who holds a man in a room through the strange part, and the strange part is short.