I Do Not Open Them Any More

There is a number and you know exactly what it is.

Three, or five, or however many. And you know where they are. In the drawer under the thing, or at the back of the shelf, or in the folder that also has the insurance in it.

And when anybody asks how school is going, you say fine, and that is not a lie exactly, because you genuinely do not know.

You stopped a while back. You would not be able to say precisely when. There was one that you did not open straight away and then did not open that week and then it stopped being a thing that was going to be opened, and after the first one the second was easier.

And you have been calling this peace. I want to look at whether it is.

Be strong and of a good courage

There is an instruction in Joshua given to a man taking over from somebody enormous, and the last clause is the part that matters here.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. (Joshua 1:9, King James Version)

Look at the reason given for the courage. Not because it will go well. Not because he is up to it. Because of a presence, in every place he ends up.

Whithersoever thou goest is deliberately unspecified. It does not list the acceptable destinations. It covers the rooms he will walk into confidently and the ones he will walk into badly, and it makes no distinction between them.

You have a presence available in the room you have been avoiding, and no part of that has ever once depended on you walking in well. Joshua 1:9 puts the ground of the courage outside the man entirely, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that specific about a drawer in a kitchen.

And notice what the instruction does not do. It does not tell him not to feel afraid. Be not afraid sits beside a promise, not on its own, which means the fear is being answered rather than forbidden.

You were never being told your avoidance was cowardice, and no instruction in scripture has ever once been issued to somebody who was not already frightened. The written word attaches the courage to a presence, and the Spirit of God is the one who supplies what the drawer has been costing.

Peace and a held door

So let us be accurate about what has been happening, and I am not going to be unkind about it.

Peace is a state where nothing is required. A held door is a state where something is required continuously and the effort has stopped being noticed.

The tell is the number. You know how many there are. A person genuinely at peace about something does not have a running count.

You have been keeping a tally that peace has never once needed to keep. Joshua 1:9 gives the courage a ground rather than asking a person to generate it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names a held door for what it is without condemning the hand on it.

And there is a second cost, and it is the reason this is worth doing something about rather than simply living with.

An unopened envelope does not contain what is in it. It contains everything it could contain. Every unopened one in that drawer currently holds the worst version, because that is what an unread thing holds by default.

So the drawer is not neutral storage. It is a small accumulating weight, and every new one that goes in makes the whole collection heavier rather than adding one unit.

You have been storing the worst possible version of several years, and no envelope has ever once held more than it actually says. The written word promises a presence in every place a person goes, including a kitchen at half past nine, and the Spirit of God is the one who goes into the drawer with somebody.

You were never running from information, and nobody has ever once been afraid of a piece of paper for no reason at all. Joshua 1:9 answers the fear rather than forbidding it, and it is the Holy Spirit who meets the actual thing underneath.

Open one, with somebody in the room

So here is the assignment, and the second half of it is not optional.

Tonight, open one. Not all of them. One, and the oldest one if you can bear it, because the oldest one is the least likely to be about anything current.

You are being asked for one envelope out of six, and the drawer has never once had to be emptied in a single evening. Joshua 1:9 sends a man into one place at a time with a presence already there, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes the smallest possible step the right one.

And have another person in the room while you do it.

That second part is the whole design. Not because you need help reading it. Because a sentence read alone in a drawer at half past nine grows, and a sentence read with somebody in the room stays the size it is.

It does not have to be somebody who has been told what is happening. A person on the other side of the kitchen doing something else is enough. If the house is empty, a voice on a phone counts.

You have a way to keep a sentence the size it is, and a page read alone at half past nine has never once stayed that size. Joshua 1:9 attaches the courage to a presence rather than to solitude, and the Spirit of God is the one who is already in the kitchen before anybody else walks in.

Read it. Then say one sentence out loud about it, even if the sentence is: that was nothing.

Joshua 1:9 promises the presence whithersoever thou goest, which includes a drawer, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is in a kitchen with somebody and an envelope and one other person.

You are permitted to do this with company, and doing a hard thing with somebody in the room has never once made it a smaller act. The written word grounds the courage in a presence rather than in a temperament, and the Spirit of God is the one who is there before anybody else arrives.

You have one envelope to open tonight, and it has never once been the whole drawer that was being asked of you. Joshua 1:9 covers every place a person goes without ranking them, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes one enough for tonight.