I Stay Seated For That One Now

You are not a quiet woman in a service and everybody who has ever sat near you knows it.

When they call for the sick, you are up. When somebody testifies, you are the one making a noise at the back that starts other people off. When the young ones go forward for their exams, you are there with a hand on somebody's shoulder before the pastor has finished the sentence.

Twenty five years of that. It is not a performance and it never has been. That is genuinely what is in you and it comes out of you.

And then there is the one.

When they call for that one, you stay in your seat.

You do not make a fuss about it. You keep your hands in your lap and you let the room go up around you and you look absolutely fine, and nobody has ever noticed, because who would notice you of all people sitting one out.

You have been staying seated for that one for about five years.

Now, before anything else, hear me.

I am not catching you out.

There is nothing here to be ashamed of and I have not found a crack in you. Everything you do in that building is real and God has been in all of it, and I am not going to suggest to you that the one thing has not moved because you have stopped standing up for it.

I am saying I saw the one you sit through. That is all. And I have sat through one myself.

Boldly, and who it is for

Here is a verse most people know and almost nobody reads slowly.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.Hebrews 4:16

Look at the word therefore, because everything hangs on what it is pointing back at.

The verses just before it are about the High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Not informed about them. Touched. He has been in the position, and He knows from the inside what it does to a person, and that is the reason given for the boldness.

So the boldness in that verse is not confidence about the outcome. It is not enthusiasm and it is not certainty. It is permission that rests entirely on who is at the other end.

So let me turn and say it straight to you, in your row with your hands in your lap.

You are welcome at that throne on the one you sit through. Not one day, not when the fire comes back for it, not when you can bring yourself to stand. Right now, exactly as you are, you are inside the therefore, because it points at Him rather than at your posture. That is not my encouragement. That is what is written, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries a written line down onto a real woman in a real seat while the room is still going up around her.

Now, why is it the one?

Because it is the one that costs. Everything else you stand up for, you stand up for on behalf of somebody else, and there is nothing on the line for you when the room goes up. That one is yours. And when you stand for your own thing and sit back down and nothing has changed, the walk back to your seat is a different walk entirely.

That is not unbelief. That is a woman who has made the walk enough times to know what it takes out of her.

But notice what the verse does not require. It does not say come boldly if you can raise the volume. It does not say come loudly. Boldness in that sentence is about approach, not about decibels, and a woman sitting perfectly still in the third row with her hands in her lap can be doing the boldest thing in that building.

And take this in, because it is already decided rather than pending. You have obtained mercy on this and you have grace to help in time of need, and the throne has not once been closed to the one thing you cannot shout about. The word says time of need, which is a phrase about right now rather than about a better season, and it is His Spirit who carries a written promise into a real chest in a real room.

The praise break is not the price of admission. It never was. You have known that about everybody else in that building for years.