I Fill Every Visit Up With Doing

You arrive with a plan.

Not written down. But there is always something. A job that needs doing, a thing to sort out, a place to go, a reason to be moving about for the first hour.

And it is genuinely useful. Things get done on those visits that would not otherwise get done, and nobody has ever once complained about any of it, and you are good at it.

But you have noticed something about which visits get a plan.

Not all of them. With most people you turn up and sit down and that is that. With one particular person there is always a plan, and there has been a plan every single time for about eight years.

And last time, driving home, you finally said the honest sentence to yourself, which is that you have never once sat in a room with that person with nothing to do.

Not for five minutes. In eight years.

There is a moment where somebody is named twice, gently, and told what is actually going on.

Martha, Martha

Here it is.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. (Luke 10:41, King James Version)

The name twice, first of all.

That is not a rebuke. When a name is doubled like that in the book it is nearly always tenderness, and it is used at moments when somebody is about to be told something true that they will not enjoy.

You have been handled gently before anything was said, and Luke 10:41 doubles the name rather than opening with the correction. The Holy Spirit is the one who recorded both, and the order of them is what makes the rest of it bearable.

Now the thing He names, because it is not the work.

Careful and troubled about many things. Not: too much is being done here. Not: the meal does not matter. He names a state rather than an activity, and He names two states in one breath.

Careful there means full of care in the old sense. Anxious. And troubled means stirred up, moved about on the inside.

You are being described rather than corrected, and it is written that she is careful and troubled rather than that she is doing the wrong tasks. The Spirit of God is the one who went past the kitchen to the woman in it, and the woman in it was not being told off about a meal.

And here is what the doubled name plus a diagnosis actually is.

It is somebody looking at a person who is moving about a great deal and seeing the thing underneath the moving.

Not the tasks. Not the hospitality, which was real and generous and not criticized anywhere in the account. The state that was driving it.

You have somebody looking past the plan you arrive with, and Scripture names an inward condition rather than an outward one. The Holy Spirit is the one who looks under a competent surface, and competent surfaces are the hardest ones to look under.

What the doing protects you from

Now let me say the honest thing about the plan, because you already half said it on the drive home.

A plan is a guarantee. It guarantees that there will not be a gap.

And a gap with that particular person is the thing you have been organizing your visits to prevent for eight years, without ever once deciding to.

You have been preventing something rather than achieving something, and it is written that Martha was troubled about many things rather than devoted to them. The Spirit of God is the one who names a purpose a person has never stated, and He names it without any accusation in it.

And here is what the gap actually contains, which is why it frightens you.

Nobody knows. That is the truth of it. It has never been allowed to last long enough for anybody to find out, and so it has become a room in your own house that has never been opened, and unopened rooms grow in a person's imagination.

Whatever is in there is almost certainly smaller than eight years of prevention suggests.

You have been avoiding something you have never seen, and the written word names the state plainly rather than leaving anybody to guess at it. The Holy Spirit is the one who opens a room like that, and He opens it gently and with the person still in it.

And one thing that needs saying because you will reach for it otherwise.

None of this means the doing was wrong. Those visits were useful and the things you did got done and a lot of them mattered.

Martha is not told to stop cooking. The meal happened. Nobody in that account is told their work was worthless.

You are not being asked to stop being useful, and it is written that the trouble was about many things rather than that the things were the trouble. The Spirit of God is the one who separates a good activity from the state driving it, and both can be true at once.

Let the quiet last

So here is what to do, and the whole of it is a subtraction and it will feel like arriving empty handed.

Go with no plan. Nothing to sort out, nothing that needs doing, nowhere to be afterward, and nothing prepared to fill a gap.

Two cups on a table and that is all.

You are able to arrive with nothing to do, and Luke 10:41 names a state rather than telling anybody to work differently. The Holy Spirit is the one who gets a woman through a door with empty hands, and the door is the whole difficulty.

And then let the quiet last.

It will arrive within about four minutes. Everything in you will produce something to say or something to get up for, and every one of those will feel reasonable and necessary.

Let it be quiet for one minute longer than is comfortable, and then one minute longer than that.

You are able to stay in it slightly past the point where it is bearable, and it is written that she was troubled about many things rather than that the many things were required. The Spirit of God is the one who holds a woman in a chair through a silence, and the silence is where the eight years get answered.

And expect one of two things, because it is nearly always one of them.

Either the other person will say something they have never said, because a gap is the only place some sentences can come out. Or nothing will happen at all, and the discovery will be that nothing was the thing being avoided, and that nothing is survivable.

Both of those end the eight years.

You have a finding coming either way, and His word puts the naming in one sentence rather than in a long explanation. The Holy Spirit is the one who is in that gap already, and He has been waiting in it for about eight years.

And do not explain what you are doing.

Do not say you came with no plan today. Do not announce that you are trying something. Turn up, sit down, and let it be an ordinary visit that happens to have nothing in it.

You are able to do it without announcing it, and it is written that Jesus said her name twice and then one sentence rather than a preamble. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an unannounced change land as warmth, and an announced one would become another activity.