You have given away every single one of them.
Every time something good has happened in your life, and things have happened, you have taken it straight into a room and spent it there.
Not badly. This is not a criticism. You testify because testimony builds people and you know it builds them, and there are two women in that congregation who are still standing on things you said out loud about your own life.
But look at the pattern.
Something comes. And within about a day, you have converted it into something for other people, and you have never once sat with it as a thing that happened to you.
There was a Tuesday in April. You know the one. And by Wednesday evening you had told it in a way that helped somebody, and by Sunday it was a thing the church knew about, and at no point between the Tuesday and the Sunday did you sit down and simply be glad on your own behalf.
Let me say something before we go on.
I am not correcting you.
Nothing you have done with any of them was wrong. Spending a good thing on a room is a generous act and those two women are not imagining what it did for them.
I am saying I noticed that none of them stayed. That is all.
He inclined His ear to me
Here is a psalm that is almost entirely first person, and it does not apologize for it once.
I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.Psalm 116:1-2
Count what is going on there. My voice. My supplications. Unto me. I will call.
And the reason he gives for loving God is not general. It is not because God is good in the abstract, which is true and which he would also have said. The reason is because he hath heard my voice, which is a specific thing that happened to one man and which he is willing to name as his own.
Inclined his ear unto me. Leaned down toward one person. That is a picture of individual attention and the psalmist writes it down and puts it in a book that everybody sings.
He does not spend it and move on. He keeps it. He turns it into a reason he is going to keep calling for the rest of his life.
So let me turn and say it straight to you, on that porch with your arms round two friends.
You have something addressed to you specifically. Not one day, not once you have found the right place to spend it, not when it has been made useful. Right now, on a bright Sunday with everybody spilling out, you are the one whose voice was heard, and the psalm treats that as a thing worth keeping rather than a thing to distribute. That is not my sentiment. That is what is written, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries a written line down onto a real woman on a real church porch.
Now, why does none of it stay?
Because you learned somewhere that a good thing is only justified once it has been useful.
That is the mechanism, and it is very common in people with your particular gift, and it is nearly invisible because everything it produces looks like generosity.
But a gift that has to earn its keep is a gift you have not received. It has passed through your hands on its way to somewhere else, and your hands are the one place it never rested.
And take this in, because it is already decided rather than pending. You have something of your own that does not have to be converted into anything. The word says he hath inclined his ear unto me, singular, particular, addressed to one person, and it is His Spirit who carries a written line into a real morning on a real porch.
Keep this one. That is the crossing, and it is allowed to happen on an ordinary Sunday with nobody noticing.
So we are going to keep one.
Not stop testifying. Please do not stop testifying. Two women are standing on things you said and there will be more of them.
We are going to take one good thing and not spend it. Sit with it. Let it be a thing that happened to you, addressed to you, with your name on it.
If it feels wasteful, expect it, and do not read it as failure. Fifteen years of converting will make keeping feel like hoarding, and it is not.
So hear it said over you before you write. You have something inclined toward you personally, and the inclining was never a resource to be distributed; Psalm 116 was written long before that Tuesday in April, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings what is written and sets it down in a real porch, on a real morning, with people spilling out around you.
And nothing has to feel different for this to be true. This is not about producing anything on a church porch. It is about a woman keeping one.
Declare this over yourself
Say these over your own name, out loud, in the first person. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that was as true on that Tuesday in April as it is now; the authority in these words is His, delegated to you and carried in His Name, and it is His Spirit who makes what is written live in a real mouth. And however He answers about everything else, and He answers in His own way and His own manner, you are inside the promise the whole time He is doing it.
- Habit of giving every praise away, you are not generosity, and this one is staying in my own mouth. Psalm 116 says He hath inclined His ear unto me, singular and particular, and the man who wrote it kept it rather than spending it.
- Rule that a good thing is only justified once it has been useful, you are wrong and you are dismissed in the name of Jesus. The Holy Spirit did not send it through my hands on its way somewhere else, and my hands are the one place it has never rested.
- Lord, You heard my voice and my supplications, and Your word gives that as the reason a man keeps calling for the rest of his life. My own name is on this paper, and I am keeping this one.
Psalm 116:2
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