Thirty Saved And None Opened Twice

Thirty two saved, and she has opened none of them a second time.

She went through the folder on a Sunday afternoon, which she had never done, and it was worse than she thought it would be in a way she found hard to explain to herself.

They are all good. That is the first thing. There is nothing rubbish in there. Every single one is something she read, agreed with, felt the truth of, and saved, because she wanted to come back to it.

The oldest is from two and a half years ago.

She read a few of them again that afternoon, and the strange thing was that she still agreed with every one, and she could still feel the small click of recognition each time, exactly the same as the first time.

And nothing had happened as a result of any of them.

There is one about how she speaks to her mother. She agreed with it completely. She has read it twice now and she agrees with it twice as much and she speaks to her mother exactly the way she did two years ago.

That is the one she has thought about since. Not because it is the most serious. Because the agreeing was so complete and so warm and produced nothing whatsoever, and she cannot tell the difference in her own body between agreeing with something and doing it.

Beholding his natural face in a glass

Sit down at the table with the phone face down a minute, because James describes this exact experience and he describes it with a mirror.

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.James 1:23

Beholding his natural face in a glass.

Notice that he does see himself. The mirror works. Nothing is wrong with the glass and nothing is wrong with his eyes, and he genuinely does look at his own face and register what is there.

And then goeth his way. And straightway forgetteth.

That is not a failure of understanding. He understood. It is a failure of the thing surviving contact with the corridor outside the room, and James does not call it stupidity, he calls it forgetting, which is quieter and much more accurate.

Hear this in your own kitchen. You are not a hypocrite, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture describes a man who genuinely saw and genuinely forgot and never once calls him a liar, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has had you recognizing truth thirty two times in two and a half years.

Now let me name what the saving is doing, because it is not laziness and laziness is a poor word for a woman who reads and agrees and cares.

Saving is what agreement does when it has nowhere to go.

The moment of recognition is real and it produces a small pressure, and that pressure wants an action. But there is no action available at half past ten at night on a phone in a bed, so the pressure goes into the only button in front of you, and it is genuinely relieved by pressing it.

You have not saved thirty two things. You have discharged thirty two moments of conviction into a folder, and each one felt like a decision at the time, and it is why none of them ever needed a second look.

Hear this too, and let it land at the table. You are not deceiving yourself on purpose, and Scripture is what says so. What is written puts this down as forgetting rather than as pretending, and the Spirit of God has never once treated a hearer as a fraud for being a hearer.

And the one about your mother.

You have agreed with it twice now, and the agreement is not the problem and it is not going to become the solution however many times you feel it. There is a phone call in that one, and it is about four minutes long, and you know roughly what the first sentence would be. The written word calls the walking away forgetting rather than lying, and the Holy Spirit has kept that one in front of you for two years.