Two Years Since I Went Up

You used to be the first one out of the row.

Not for show. You were never one of those. It was simply that when they said if anybody wants prayer come forward, there was no deliberation involved, because there was one thing and it was always the same thing and you were going to keep bringing it until something happened.

Weeks and weeks of that. Different people praying, different Sundays, the same one request. You would go back to your seat and sit down and your ears would be hot and you would be perfectly fine.

And now you stay in the row.

Not out of bitterness. Nothing that dramatic has happened. You still sing. You still put your hands up in the third song like you always did. You still mean it.

But when they say come forward, something in your legs has learned to stay, and it does not feel like a decision, and it has been doing that for about two years.

Somebody sat down next to you last month who is new, and she went up, and you watched her go and you felt something you did not want to look at.

Let me be clear before we start.

I am not telling you off.

There is nothing to confess here and I have not found you out. You did not lose your faith. I am not going to hint that the two years of staying seated are the reason nothing has moved, because they are not, and anybody who tells you otherwise is not reading the same book I am.

I am saying I noticed your legs. That is all.

The watchmen

Here is a man in Scripture who does not pretend the waiting is comfortable.

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.Psalm 130:5-6

Notice that he says the last line twice.

More than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

That is not a poetic flourish. That is a man repeating himself because the first time did not carry the weight of it. He is describing the specific tiredness of night duty, where a person has been awake so long that they cannot tell any more whether the sky is getting lighter or their eyes are simply adjusting.

And he does not apologize for being in that state. He writes it down, twice, in the middle of a psalm that gets sung in public.

So I want to turn now and speak this over you, in your row, with the third song still going.

You are inside that psalm. Not one day, not when the fire comes back, not when you feel like getting up again. Right now, sitting exactly where you are, you are the watchman in verse six, and the Bible gave him a whole psalm rather than a rebuke. That is not my consolation. That is what is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who sets a written line down in a real person in a real row on a real Sunday.

Now, why did your legs learn to stay?

Because going forward is not free. Every time you walked up that aisle you handed the thing over again, and every time you walked back you carried it back down with you, and a person can only make that particular round trip so many times before the body starts protecting them from it.

That is not backsliding. That is a tired watchman, and Scripture has a category for that and it is not a shameful one.

But look at what the psalmist puts his weight on, because it is not his own stamina. In his word do I hope. The hope is not resting on how the waiting is going. It rests on something that was written down and does not move when a person gets tired.

And this next part is settled rather than pending, so hear it. You have a request that is still live, and it did not lapse because your legs stopped carrying it up an aisle. The word says with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption, and plenteous is not a word about running low, and it is His Spirit who carries a written promise into a real chest that has stopped expecting things.

Two years of staying seated did not archive anything. There is no archive.