I Stopped Saying Yes To Invitations

You have a reason ready for each one now.

Working. Away that weekend. Not feeling great. Might drop in later if things settle down.

None of them are true and all of them are believable, and you have got good enough at it that nobody has questioned one yet.

And the real reason is small enough that saying it out loud would sound absurd. It is that walking in there with what you can bring this year feels worse than not walking in at all.

So you have solved it. You have removed yourself. No comparison, no moment at the door, no ten seconds of anybody looking at anything.

And it works, in the way that cutting off a hand solves a splinter.

Because what has actually happened is that you have taken yourself out of six or seven rooms full of people who like you, in order to avoid a difficulty that lasts about four seconds and exists mostly in advance.

There is a verse in Hebrews that puts contentment right next to a promise, and the promise is not the one people usually quote it for.

Be content with such things as ye have

Here it is, whole, because the two halves belong together.

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5, King James Version)

Be content with such things as ye have. Notice what content is not, in that sentence.

It is not cheerfulness about having less. It is not pretending to prefer it. Content here is the state of a man who has stopped running the comparison, because the comparison is what makes what he has feel like a verdict.

You have been asked to put a comparison down rather than to feel differently about a thin year, and the Holy Spirit is the one who defined it that way. Hebrews 13:5 attaches contentment to what a man has rather than to how he feels about it, and He defined it as something a man can actually do.

And the word in front of it matters just as much.

Let your conversation be without covetousness. Conversation there means the whole way a man carries himself, his manner of life, how he moves through a room. The instruction is about how he goes, not about what he owns.

You are being told how to walk into a room rather than what to walk in with, and it is written that the conversation is to be without covetousness rather than the hands full. The Spirit of God is the one who put the instruction on the manner rather than on the material.

Now the reason it gives, which is the whole engine of the verse.

For he hath said. The contentment is not built on the circumstances improving. It is built on something already said, in the past, that has not been withdrawn.

You are standing on something that was said before this year started, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a spoken word standing. The written word grounds the contentment in a word already spoken rather than in anything arriving, and He has not taken this one back.

He will never leave thee

And here is what was said, and it is worth reading against the last few months.

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Notice what it does not promise. It does not say the year will turn. It does not say anything about supply, or about the figure, or about next December. Not one word.

It promises presence. That is the entire content of it. Somebody saying, I am not going anywhere.

You have a promise about company rather than about circumstances, and Hebrews 13:5 grounds contentment in never leaving rather than in anything being provided. The Spirit of God is the one who chose to promise presence there, and He chose it for people in exactly this position.

Now put that next to the thing you have been doing all autumn.

Leaving. Quietly, with a good reason each time, but leaving. Withdrawing from rooms because of what cannot be carried into them.

And the verse that is meant to steady a man in a thin year is a verse about somebody refusing to make that exact move.

You have been doing the one thing that promise rules out, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a man notice a pattern he built himself. It is written that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee, and He does it without accusation.

And here is the part about the people in those rooms.

They did not invite what you were bringing. They invited you. Not one of those invitations was issued on the strength of what would arrive in your hands, and most of the people in them would be genuinely upset to learn that was the reason for the absence.

You have been assessed on something nobody was measuring, and His word aims the whole instruction at how a man goes rather than at what he brings. The Spirit of God is the one who tells a man what a room actually wanted, and the room wanted him.

Go with what is in your hands

So here is what to do, and it is one invitation rather than a change of policy.

Say yes to one. The next one, or the easiest one, it does not matter which.

Then go with whatever is actually in your hands. Not more than that, and not nothing either. Something small and true, and if there is genuinely nothing, then go with nothing and go anyway.

You are allowed to walk in with what there is, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man through a door. It is written that a man is to be content with such things as ye have, and the door has been the whole obstacle for months.

And expect the four seconds, because they come at the threshold.

There is a moment on the step where every reason to turn round arrives at once, fully formed and very persuasive. It lasts about as long as it takes to knock, and then somebody opens the door and says your name and it is finished.

You have four seconds to get through and nothing beyond them, and Scripture sets contentment beside a promise that nobody is leaving. The Spirit of God is the one who stands with a man on a step, and He has never once left one of them there.

And then, once inside, give whatever attention you have.

That is the part that has been missing from those rooms all year and nobody has been able to name it. Not a parcel. You. Sitting down with somebody, asking a real question, staying past the point where it would be polite to go.

You are the thing those rooms have been short of, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary evening count for a year. Hebrews 13:5 puts the whole weight on the manner of a man's life rather than on what he carries, and He does it through people staying in rooms.