Her House Was Spotless And She Was Not Kind

There was a woman on our road when I was young whose house was immaculate.

Not tidy. Immaculate. You could have eaten off any surface in it and there was never anything on a chair, and the front step was done twice a week whether it needed it or not.

And she was not kind.

Not cruel either. Just cold, in a way children notice immediately and adults learn to explain away. Nobody in that street would have gone to her on a bad night. Everybody in that street would have said she kept a lovely home.

I have thought about her for fifty years, because she is the whole argument, and one honest look at her takes down a thing that a great many women carry for their entire lives.

You have a woman like that in your own memory. Everybody does.

And you have been carrying a rule that her existence disproves, and the two have never been put in the same sentence until now.

What He asks of you is not a tidy room

There is a verse in Micah that answers the question of what is actually required, and it is one of the shortest lists in scripture.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8, King James Version)

Three things. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

That is the list. It is short enough to remember and complete enough that the prophet presents it as the answer to the whole question, and there is nothing in it about a house.

You are required to do justly and love mercy, and a tidy room has never once appeared anywhere on that list. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman remembering a very clean house on a road long ago, and Micah 6:8 gives the complete requirement in one sentence and a house is not in it.

And notice what the question was.

What doth the LORD require of thee. Not what is admirable, not what looks well. Require. This is the floor, the actual specification, and it is three relational things and nothing else.

You have the actual specification in front of you, and no version of it has ever once included a surface. The written word gives the requirement as three things about how a person treats people and God, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a woman who could name a cold immaculate house from fifty years ago.

Run her against the list

So let us do the thing that has never been done.

Take the woman with the immaculate house and run her against Micah 6:8. Did she do justly. Did she love mercy. Did she walk humbly.

And then take the warmest woman in your memory, whose house was probably a wreck, and run her against the same three.

The answer takes about four seconds and it is not close.

You are able to run both of them against the actual list, and the list has never once returned the answer you were trained to expect. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman doing a comparison she has avoided for fifty years, and Micah 6:8 gives three relational tests and no domestic ones.

And here is the thing to be honest about, because it is uncomfortable.

Some of the coldest people you have known kept beautiful houses, and some of the kindest kept houses you would not photograph. That is not a rule and it is not an inversion, but it is enough to prove that the two are not connected, and one counterexample is all a claim like that can survive.

You have counterexamples going back fifty years, and that claim has never once survived one of them. The written word lists three things and none of them is visible from a doorway, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a woman who has known the truth about this since she was a child.

Leaving one thing out

So here is tonight, and it is a small act of agreement with Micah.

Leave one thing out on purpose and go to bed.

You are agreeing with a list that never mentioned your house, and agreeing with it has never once cost you anything real. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman going to bed past something she left out, and Micah 6:8 sets the requirement at three relational things.

And tomorrow, do one thing off the actual list.

Ring somebody. Say the kind thing that has been waiting to be said. Do the small just thing that got put off because there was housework.

That is the requirement, and it has been waiting while the housework was being done.

You are doing something off the real list, and no item on it has ever once required the house to be ready first. The written word puts justice and mercy and humility where the requirement sits, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a woman on the telephone in a room with something still out in it.