Space That Does Not Justify Itself

Everything in that house has a job.

Ask about any object and you will get an answer within two seconds. That is for the car. That belongs to the boy. That is going to be useful when we do the bathroom.

And you would say that is sensible, and it is, and it has also become total.

There is nothing in that house that exists without doing something. Not one object, not one shelf, not one square foot of floor.

Which means, and I want to put this as plainly as I can, there is nothing in your own home that is there for you.

Everything is working. The house is fully deployed. And a man living in a fully deployed house is a man with nowhere to be that is not also doing something.

I do not think you have ever noticed that, because each individual decision was correct, and the total was never decided by anybody.

A broad place where nothing is narrow

There is a line in Job where a man describes what God would have done for him, and the picture is entirely about width.

Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness. (Job 36:16, King James Version)

Out of the strait into a broad place. Strait means narrow, pressed, constrained on every side.

And the alternative offered is not a solved problem or a fixed circumstance. It is a broad place, where there is no straitness. The description of the good thing is simply that there is room in it.

You are removed into a broad place, and no broad place has ever once had to earn its own breadth. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who can name the job of every object in his house, and Job 36:16 describes the rescue entirely in terms of width and pressure.

And notice that the breadth is not for anything.

The verse does not say a broad place in which to do something, or so that you can accomplish more. The broadness is the state, the destination, and the only thing said about it is that there is no narrowness in it.

You are offered a room that is not for anything, and no space in that verse has ever once had a purpose attached. The written word makes the absence of pressure the whole content of the good thing, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a man whose house is fully deployed.

What a fully deployed house costs

Let me count the cost, because it is not obvious and you will not have counted it.

A house where every square foot is working is a house with no give in it. When something new arrives, there is nowhere for it to be, so it becomes an immediate problem rather than an object.

And it is not only objects. When a person needs an hour, there is nowhere to have it, because every room is doing something and sitting in it means sitting among work.

You have a house with no give in it, and no house like that has ever once been able to absorb anything. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who cannot sit anywhere in his own home that is not also a workspace, and Job 36:16 offers a place with no straitness in it at all.

And there is a thing that has gone missing that you may not have connected to this.

Nobody sits down in that house. Not really. There is sitting down at the end of the day to watch something, which is different, and a man in that position would say he is not a sitting down sort of man.

That may be true. It is also what happens to a man in a house where every surface is assigned.

You have been calling a consequence a temperament, and no man has ever once been able to sit down in a fully assigned room. The written word puts the whole of the blessing into the absence of narrowness, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man who has not sat in his own front room without a reason in years.

One surface that does nothing

So here is the assignment, and it will feel wrong to you specifically.

Clear one surface and put nothing on it for a week. And give it no job.

Not a place for keys. Not a spot for the post. Nothing. One square foot that has no function of any kind for seven days.

You are keeping one square foot with no job at all, and no space has ever once had to justify itself to be allowed to exist. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a man looking at a shelf with nothing on it and no plan for it, and Job 36:16 describes a broad place and gives it no purpose.

And the temptation for you is not to fill it. It is to assign it.

You will find yourself thinking it would be a good place for the keys, which would be useful, and that is the same instinct in a smarter coat. Do not give it a job. It has no job. That is the whole of the exercise.

You are refusing to assign something a job, and refusing has never once been the same as wasting it. The written word makes the broad place the destination rather than a means, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a man deciding not to put the keys there.