Two years, and the prayer has always been the same one and he has never noticed its shape until a Tuesday in a supermarket.
The prayer is: Lord, if I am supposed to go back to him, let us run into each other.
He has prayed it in the car, on the stairs, walking. Hundreds of times, and it has always felt humble, because it puts the thing in God's hands and takes it out of his, and that is what humble is supposed to look like.
They have not run into each other. The man lives eleven miles away and they have four people in common and it has simply not happened.
On a Tuesday in June he was in a supermarket and he saw somebody at the end of an aisle who looked like him from behind, and his whole body did something before his mind got there.
It was not the man. It was somebody about the same height.
He stood there with a basket and worked out, over about forty seconds, what he had actually been praying for two years.
He has been asking God to arrange a coincidence so that going back would not have to be a decision. So that it would happen to him. So that if it went badly he could say, honestly, that he had not sought it out, and if it went well he could say it was clearly God.
Every single version of it removes the part where he chooses.
He put the basket down on the floor at the end of that aisle, which he has never done before or since, and stood there for a bit, and then picked it up.
Arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee
Stand on that roof a minute, because there is a sentence in Ezra said to a man sitting on the ground in front of a mess, and it is the shortest and least sentimental thing anybody says to him.
Ezra is astonished. He has torn his garment and pulled his hair out and sat down appalled until the evening sacrifice, and the situation in front of him is genuinely bad and genuinely not simple.
And a man called Shechaniah says this.
Arise; for this matter belongeth unto thee: we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it.Ezra 10:4
Arise. This matter belongeth unto thee.
Nobody offers him a sign. Nobody suggests waiting for the situation to develop or for the other parties to make the first move. He is told, plainly, that it is his, that he will not be alone in it, and to be of good courage and do it.
And notice the middle clause, because it is the mercy in the sentence: we also will be with thee. The courage is asked for and the company is promised in the same breath.
Hear this with the basket still in your hand. You are not lacking guidance, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts the matter into a man's own hands and tells him to arise, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has kept this in front of you for two years, which is not a coincidence He failed to arrange.
Now let me name the prayer, because you named it yourself in an aisle and that took two years and forty seconds.
It was not humility. It was insulation.
A coincidence would have carried the responsibility, and the written word never offered to carry it that way, and the Holy Spirit has not been declining to arrange something. If God had arranged it, then whatever happened next was His doing and not your choosing, and there would be no version of the story in which you decided to walk toward a man you were wrong with.
That is not wickedness and I am not going to call it that. It is an ordinary human arrangement and almost everybody makes one, and it is worth naming plainly because you have just seen it whole for the first time.
Hear this too, and let it settle where the supermarket is still sitting. You are not being refused, and Scripture is what says so. What is written hands the matter to the man and calls for courage rather than sending a signal, and the Spirit of God does not withhold coincidences as a test, and He has never once made a chance meeting the condition of anybody's obedience.
And I want to be plain, because this category will not do the other thing. Nothing here promises you that it goes well. He may not answer. He may answer badly. There is no formula in this article that produces a reconciliation, and if there were it would be a lie.
You are not being asked for an outcome. The written word asks for the arising and the Holy Spirit handles the rest. You are being asked for a message with a time in it.
So today you send the message.
Not when you run into each other, because that has been the shape of the prayer and it has quietly been the point of the prayer, and you saw that in an aisle.
And it needs a time in it, because a message without a time is another coincidence in a different form: it leaves the deciding to him and you are back where you were, and the written word put the deciding in your hands and the Holy Spirit has kept it there.
Something like: I have wanted to talk to you for a long time. Can I ring you on Thursday evening.
And nothing about the two years. No explanation, no summary, no account of what you have understood in a supermarket, because all of that is for later and most of it is for nobody.
The written word tells a man sitting on the ground that the matter belongs to him and to be of good courage and do it, and it promises company in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been keeping this in front of you for two years, so nothing about this was ever waiting on an arrangement.
He might not reply. That part is his and it is genuinely not yours, and you will have done the thing either way, because the message with a time in it is the whole of what belongs to you.
Declare this over yourself
Say these on the roof before you send it. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit has kept this in front of you for two years according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of getting a sign. Whether he replies warmly, badly or not at all, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of the man who finally sent it.
- Chance meeting I have been praying for, you are not guidance and you are not coming. Scripture says arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee, we also will be with thee, be of good courage and do it, and nobody in that verse is offered a sign.
- Insulation I mistook for humility for two years, get out of my hands, in the name of Jesus. The written word hands the matter to the man and asks for courage rather than sending a signal, and the Spirit of God has never made a coincidence the condition of obedience.
- Lord, You are the God who says the matter belongs to me and promises company in the same breath, and Your Spirit has kept this in front of me for two years, exactly as it is written. I am sending the message today with a time in it, and I am saying nothing about the two years.
Ezra 10:4
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
