I Send It Because It Is Easier Than Going

Nine years of sending.

It goes out in good time. It is always well chosen. It arrives, and there is a phone call about it, and the phone call is warm and lasts about twenty minutes and is genuinely good.

And it is the whole of the relationship now, and both of you know it, and neither of you has ever said so.

There are reasons for not going. Real ones. The distance is real, the cost is real, the time off is real, and every single one of those would survive being examined by anybody.

And none of them is the reason.

You know what the reason is. You have known for about six years. And you have never once said it out loud to anybody, including yourself in a car, which is where most men say the things they will not say anywhere else.

There is a line in a letter where somebody names wanting to see a person in the flesh, and gives a reason that has nothing noble about it at all.

Greatly desiring to see thee

Here it is.

Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy. (2 Timothy 1:4, King James Version)

Three things in one sentence and every one of them is worth stopping on.

Greatly desiring to see thee. Not to hear from. Not to write to. To see, which is a word about being in a room with somebody, and he puts greatly in front of it.

You are looking at a man who names wanting to be physically present, and 2 Timothy 1:4 says desiring to see thee rather than desiring to hear from thee. The Holy Spirit is the one who recorded a man saying that plainly, and plainly is unusual in men at any point in history.

Now the middle, which is the part most people read past.

Being mindful of thy tears. He is remembering somebody crying. That is what is in his head while he writes it, and it is what he attaches the desire to.

He wants to see a person he last saw upset. That is a specific and uncomfortable thing to want, and he says it without any hedging.

You have been shown a man moving toward the difficult memory rather than away from it, and it is written that he is mindful of the tears rather than that he has put them behind him. The Spirit of God is the one who left that detail in, and the detail is the reason the verse is any use to anybody.

And the reason he gives, which is the honest part.

That I may be filled with joy. Not so that he can help. Not so that he can teach. So that he can be filled with joy, which is a thing he wants for himself.

You have permission to want something for yourself in this, and the written word gives the reason as his own joy rather than as anybody's need. The Holy Spirit is the one who allowed a self interested reason into the letter, and it is the least complicated sentence in it.

The reason you have never said

Now let me say the thing, and if it is wrong then it is wrong and you will know within about four seconds.

Going would mean feeling something.

A parcel arrives and a phone call happens and both of those can be done at a distance where nothing goes off in a man's chest. Twenty minutes on a phone has an end to it that everybody can see coming.

A doorway does not. Standing in a doorway after a long journey with somebody you have not seen in nine years is not a thing anybody can manage.

You have been keeping something at a distance where it cannot reach you, and it is written that he was mindful of the tears and wanted to go anyway. The Spirit of God is the one who names the actual reason without any contempt in it, and there is none in it because it is an entirely ordinary reason.

And here is what makes it harder rather than easier.

The nine years are now part of it. Going now means arriving with nine years in the room, and every one of those years will be standing in that doorway too, and that is a great deal more to walk into than it would have been in year two.

That is true and it is worth saying and it does not change what to do.

You have more to walk into than you once did, and His word has a man greatly desiring to see somebody rather than waiting for the desire to become easy. The Holy Spirit is the one who does not pretend a thing is smaller than it is, and this one has grown.

And one plain thing about them, which is the part that will move you if anything does.

They are not waiting for the parcel. Nobody in the history of the world has ever waited for a parcel from somebody they love.

You have been sending a substitute to somebody who is not short of objects, and it is written that the desire was to see rather than to receive anything. The Spirit of God is the one who knows what is being waited for in that house, and it has never once been what goes in the mail.

Book it before the reason reassembles

So here is what to do, and the timing is the entire instruction.

Book it. This week. Before the reasons have time to line up again, because they will line up again and they will be excellent.

You are able to book something before the argument arrives, and 2 Timothy 1:4 has a man state the desire rather than work out whether it is practical. The Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man to act inside the window where a thing is still possible, and the window is about two days wide.

And book it far enough out that it is real and near enough that it cannot be quietly moved.

Not next year. Not sometime. A date, bought, with a return on it, so that it is a thing in the world rather than an intention in a man.

You are able to make it a fact rather than a plan, and it is written that he greatly desired to see him rather than that he hoped to at some point. The Spirit of God is the one who turns an intention into a date, and the date is what survives the next four months.

And then tell them. One sentence, and no more than that.

I am coming in March. That is it. Do not explain, do not apologize for nine years, do not say anything about what it means or why now.

You have one sentence and it is four words long, and Scripture names the desire plainly rather than explaining the absence. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps an announcement short, and short is what keeps it from becoming a conversation about nine years.

And when you get there, expect the doorway to be exactly as difficult as you think it will be.

It will. That is not a reason not to go and it never was. It will last about forty seconds and then somebody will say something ordinary and you will both go inside and put a bag down.

You have forty seconds to get through and nine years on the other side of them, and it is written that he was mindful of the tears and went toward them. The Spirit of God is the one who is in that doorway, and He has been standing in it for about nine years.