There is a piece of paper in the kitchen drawer with eleven names on it.
It is the fourth one. The first three are gone, and he could not tell you when he threw them out, and he does not think he made a decision about any of them.
Every list has been better than the last. This one has the names, and a note beside three of them about who should not be sat next to whom, and a menu that is actually achievable because he costed the last one properly and it was not. There is a date pencilled at the top. That date is in the past.
He has been going to do this for three years.
And here is what he noticed in July, sitting in the truck with the engine off, which is where he notices things.
The planning is not a step toward it. The planning has become the thing.
Each round takes about a fortnight. He enjoys it. He is good at it, and the fourth list is genuinely better than the first one, and none of that is fake and none of it is procrastination in the ordinary sense, because he is not avoiding work. He is doing the work. He is doing all of the work except the eleven seconds it would take to send a message.
Three years, four lists, no message.
And every year the list gets better, which is the part that keeps it alive, because a thing that is improving does not feel like a thing that is stuck.
Given to hospitality
Sit down on that porch step a minute, because Paul writes a short phrase to the Romans and the word underneath it is not the word anybody expects.
Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.Romans 12:13
Given to hospitality.
The word behind given to is a pursuing word. It is the word you use for chasing something down, for going after it, for following hard after a thing that is moving. It is not a word about readiness and it is not a word about arrangements.
The instruction is to chase hospitality, and chasing is not something you can do at a kitchen drawer with a pencil.
Hear this in your own truck. You are not a man who talks and does not do, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts a pursuing word under that phrase rather than a preparing word, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has kept eleven names in front of you for three years without letting one of them go.
Now let me name what the list is doing, because it is not laziness and laziness is a stupid word for a man who has costed a menu twice.
The list is the part of this that is entirely in your hands.
You control it completely. It can be improved, it can be perfected, it cannot go wrong, and nobody sees it. It has all the shape of the real thing and none of the exposure, and that is why it takes a fortnight every time and why the fourth one is better than the first.
The message is not like that. The message goes out of your hands the moment it leaves, and eleven people then have opinions and calendars and reasons, and two of them will say no, and one will not reply for nine days.
That is the whole difference, and it is not about food or seating or the cost of anything.
Hear this too, and let it stand on the porch. You are not afraid of people, and Scripture is what says so. What is written tells you to chase the thing rather than to be ready for it, and the Spirit of God has never once asked a man to have his arrangements finished before he opened his mouth.
And let me be plain about what this article is not saying, because this subject gets handled badly. Nothing here is against a Sunday gathering and nothing here says a table on a porch is more real than a hall full of people singing. And if you have no place to put a table, this is not a rebuke and you are not behind. This one is for the man with four lists and a drawer.
So today you send it.
Today, not this week, because a week is enough room for a fifth list and you know that as well as I do.
Take the list out of the drawer. Do not improve it. Pick a date that is between ten and twenty days from now, so it is close enough to be real and far enough for people to arrange, and write the message on your phone standing up in the kitchen.
Something like: doing food at ours on the twenty seventh, from about six, come if you can, no need to bring anything.
Then send it before you sit down.
Two will say no and one will not reply for nine days and that is what always happens and it is not about you, and the seating note about who should not sit next to whom will sort itself out in the actual room the way it always does.
The written word puts a chasing word under that phrase instead of a preparing word, and the Holy Spirit has kept eleven names in front of you for three years without one of them dropping off, so nothing about three years of lists makes you a man who was not serious.
You were always serious. That is why the list got better every year. The seriousness went into the wrong eleven seconds, and today it goes into the right ones.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing in the kitchen with the list in your hand. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit has kept those eleven names in front of you for three years according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of how good the plan is. Whether four come or nine come, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of a man who costed a menu twice.
- Fourth plan sitting in a drawer, you are not preparation and you are not surviving this week. Scripture says given to hospitality, and the word underneath it is a chasing word and not a getting ready word.
- Fortnight I spend improving a list every year, get out of this kitchen, in the name of Jesus. The written word never asked a man to have his arrangements finished before he opened his mouth, and the Spirit of God has held eleven names in front of me for three years without one dropping off.
- Lord, You told them to pursue it rather than to be ready for it, and Your Spirit has kept every one of those names in front of me, exactly as it is written. I am sending the message today with the date in it, standing up, before I sit down.
Romans 12:13
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.
