One Surface With Nothing On It

Go through the house in your head and find one.

One surface, anywhere, that is not currently holding something. Not the whole counter. One square foot.

Take your time.

There is not one. I know that because there is one in almost nobody's house, and the ones who have them usually made them on purpose, which nobody has ever suggested to you as a thing to do.

And here is the part I find striking, and I want you to sit with it for a second.

You have never in your adult life kept a space clear on purpose. Cleared, yes, often, and then filled again within days because a clear space is obviously available space and something always needs a home.

Kept clear is a different act, and you have not done it, and it has never once occurred to you to.

That is what this article is, and it is the last thing on this site, and it is one square foot.

Come apart and rest a while

There is a moment in Mark where the disciples come back from working and Jesus gives them an instruction about location.

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (Mark 6:31, King James Version)

Come apart into a desert place. A desert place is an empty one. That is the whole quality being specified.

He is not sending them somewhere nice. He is sending them somewhere with nothing in it, precisely because there was nothing in it, and the reason given is that there were so many coming and going that they could not even eat.

You are invited to come apart and rest, and the resting has never once had to be earned first. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman searching her own house for one clear square foot, and Mark 6:31 specifies an empty place as the thing that was needed.

And notice that the emptiness is the feature.

There is nothing in a desert place. No provision, no view, nothing to do. And that is exactly what He prescribed, which means emptiness is being treated as useful rather than as a gap waiting to be filled.

You are being handed emptiness as the actual prescription, and empty has never once been the same as wasted. The written word sends them to a place whose whole quality is that there is nothing in it, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a woman who cannot find one clear surface in her own home.

Cleared and kept clear

Let me name the distinction, because everything turns on it.

Clearing is an event. You clear a surface, and it is clear, and then the ordinary operation of a household finds it and fills it within about four days. That is not failure, that is what available space is for.

Keeping clear is a decision that has to be defended, repeatedly, against entirely reasonable claims.

You have done the event a hundred times and never once the decision, and the event has never once been able to produce what the decision produces. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who has cleared the same counter a hundred times, and Mark 6:31 prescribes a place rather than an activity.

And here is why nobody keeps one, including you.

A clear space looks like waste. There is a thing that needs a home and there is a space with nothing in it, and the arithmetic is obvious to everybody in the household including you, and the space loses that argument every single time.

It loses because it has no case. It produces nothing, does nothing, and cannot defend itself.

You have something that cannot defend itself, and a thing that produces nothing has never once been the same as a thing worth nothing. The written word names the empty place as the thing that was needed, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a woman who has never once let a space win that argument.

One surface, defended for a week

So here is the assignment, and the second half is the whole of it.

Clear one surface. Small. And then keep nothing on it for a week.

You are defending one small space that cannot argue for itself, and defending it has never once been sentimental. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman looking at one bare foot of wood, and Mark 6:31 sends them somewhere empty because empty was what they needed.

And when the claim comes, and it will come by Wednesday, here is the answer.

It is not available. Not because something else is going there, but because it is being kept empty, which is a reason even though it does not sound like one, and it is the same reason He gave the disciples.

You have a reason that does not sound like a reason, and it has never once needed to sound like one to be true. The written word prescribes a place with nothing in it, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a woman putting something on a different surface on a Wednesday.