I Only Open It To Put Something In

Four seconds. Maybe five.

That is how long you are in that room when you go in, and you go in about twice a week.

The door opens, your arm goes in with whatever it is, the thing is set down just inside on the left where there is space, and the door closes. Your feet barely cross the threshold.

And you would describe that as using the room. You would say, if anybody asked, that you go in there all the time.

You do not go in there. You post things into it.

I am not saying that to catch you out. I am saying it because there is a difference between those two that has been operating for about three years and nobody has ever named it to you.

A room you post into is not a room. It is a container with a door on it, and the reason that matters is that the whole of your relationship with that space is now conducted through your arm at a distance of about two feet.

And a man can do that for years without ever once standing in his own house.

He goes before you through that door

There is a promise in Isaiah given to a man about to go somewhere difficult, and the geography of it is the point.

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. (Isaiah 45:2, King James Version)

I will go before thee. Ahead. Through the gates first.

The whole picture is of somebody arriving at a closed thing and finding that it has already been dealt with from the other side, by somebody who got there first.

You have somebody who goes through that door ahead of you, and you have never once been the first one in. Isaiah 45:2 puts God on the far side of the gate before the man arrives, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who posts things into his own spare room.

And notice what is being broken in that verse.

Gates of brass and bars of iron. Not obstacles out in the open. Closed things. Specifically the sort of barrier that is designed to keep somebody from entering a place.

You are standing in front of the exact kind of thing that verse names, and no closed door has ever once been outside what it promises. The written word breaks what is shut before the person gets there, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a man whose feet have not been in a room in three years.

What the four seconds cost

Let me name what the posting has done, because it is quiet and it compounds.

Every time you put something in, the room gets slightly fuller and your relationship with it gets slightly thinner. Three years of that produces a room you own, pay for and cannot enter, which is a strange thing to have in a house.

And the four seconds are efficient, which is why nobody ever questions them. An efficient habit is very hard to see as a problem.

You have a habit that looks like competence, and it has never once been the same thing as competence. Isaiah 45:2 has the way made through ahead of time rather than around, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land for a man who has been efficient about avoiding one room for three years.

And here is what it does to the contents.

Everything in there is now a thing nobody has looked at. Not because it is hidden, but because posting requires no looking, so after three years the room contains about a hundred objects and no information at all about them.

So the room feels unknown, and an unknown room is far harder to enter than a known one, and the posting created that.

You are standing outside a room your own arm made unknown, and it has never once been unknown because of anything in it. The written word goes ahead and opens what is shut, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man who has just understood how his own habit built the wall.

Two minutes, feet inside

So here is today, and the entire difference is your feet.

Walk in. All the way in, past the place on the left where things get set down. Stand there for two minutes.

Move nothing. Post nothing. Take nothing out.

You are standing in a room you have only ever posted into, and standing in it has never once obliged you to do anything with it. Isaiah 45:2 breaks the gate ahead of the one arriving, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a man standing in the middle of his own spare room for the first time in three years.

And here is what the two minutes gives you that three years of posting could not.

Information. You will look at it, without meaning to, because your eyes do that when your feet are still. And after two minutes the room will be a known room instead of an unknown one, which cuts the cost of every future entry.

You are turning an unknown room into a known one, and that change has never once required a single box to be opened. The written word makes the crooked places straight before the traveler arrives, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes that land for a man whose eyes are working for the first time in that room.