I Keep Going Out To Look At It

Nine times today.

You have not counted deliberately but you know it is about nine, and you know that because at some point in the afternoon you became aware of yourself doing it and started noticing.

And there is no reason for any of them. It has not changed since the morning. It will not change by this evening. You are not checking anything and you are not doing anything to it.

You are going out to look at it because you like looking at it.

You are allowed to go out and look at it again, and delight has never once been required to have a reason attached.

And you have started feeling faintly ridiculous about this, which is the actual subject here.

Because there is a voice, and it is not a harsh one, and it says something like: it is a plant, and you are a grown man, and this is a lot of going outside.

I want to get at that voice, because I do not think it is wisdom and I do not think it is modesty. I think it is a habit that most men acquire somewhere and never examine, and it has been quietly taxing your good afternoons for years.

He will rejoice over thee with singing

There is a line in Zephaniah that describes God's own delight, and the picture in it is startling if you slow down on it.

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save; he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17, King James Version)

He will joy over thee with singing.

Now, hold that picture. God, singing, over a person. Not over a nation's history or a completed work. Over a person, with singing, which is what somebody does when a feeling has run past what speech will carry.

You are the subject of a delight that expresses itself past the limit of speech, and God has never once been described in that verse as restrained about it. Zephaniah 3:17 uses singing rather than approval, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man who has been out to his own step nine times.

And notice the phrase in the middle. He will rest in his love.

Rest. Not act on it, not do something with it, not use it productively. Rest in it, which is what a person does when they are simply in a thing and are not going anywhere with it.

That is what you have been doing at a step, and feeling ridiculous about, nine times today.

You are doing at a doorstep what that verse describes God doing, and resting in something has never once needed to produce anything to be worth the time. The Holy Spirit is the one who is described as resting in His love, and the written word puts no outcome anywhere in that sentence.

And the whole verse is disproportionate, which is the thing I want you to notice most.

It is a large God, described as mighty in the same breath, doing something enormous and unnecessary about one person. Nobody in that verse is being efficient.

You are made in the image of somebody who does not economize on delight, and a large response to a small object has never once been out of character for the maker of it. The Spirit of God is the one described as singing over a person, and the word puts mighty and singing in the same sentence with no tension between them.

What that voice actually is

Let me look at the voice, because it deserves to be identified rather than obeyed.

It says this is a lot of going outside for a plant.

And it sounds like proportion. It has the tone of a sensible man keeping himself in order. But look at what it is actually doing: it is taxing a free good.

Going out to look at it costs nothing. It takes ninety seconds, it uses nothing up, it harms nobody, and it produces a small amount of genuine pleasure each time. There is no budget being exceeded anywhere.

You are being charged for something that has never once had a cost, and a pleasure that takes nothing from anybody has never needed to be rationed. The Holy Spirit is the one who exposes a tax that nobody was owed, and Zephaniah 3:17 describes a delight with no economy in it at all.

And here is where I think the voice comes from, and I offer this rather than assert it.

Somewhere a man learns that a certain amount of visible enjoyment is appropriate and that beyond it he is being a bit much. It is not usually taught deliberately. It is absorbed, and then it runs for decades, and the man carrying it calls it being sensible.

It is not sensible. It has no arithmetic behind it. It is a rule with no author.

You are obeying something that has never once been argued for, and a rule with no author has never been a rule that had to be kept. The Spirit of God is the one who overrides a thing nobody ever wrote down, and the written word has God singing over a person without any economy anywhere in the picture.

Go out once more, on purpose

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately the opposite of restraint.

Go out and look at it once more today, on purpose, with no reason.

Not to check it. Not to water it. Make the tenth trip, deliberately, knowing it is the tenth, because a thing done on purpose is different from a thing done nine times by accident.

You are able to do something for no reason on purpose, and one deliberate trip to a step has never once been a trip a man had to account for. Zephaniah 3:17 describes a delight with no purpose attached to it anywhere, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a man makes the tenth visit.

Here is why deliberately rather than just letting it happen.

The nine happened and then got judged afterward. That is the pattern: enjoy, then assess, then feel slightly foolish. And the assessing is what will eventually reduce the nine to four and then to none.

Doing it on purpose reverses the order. It puts the decision first, which means there is nothing left to assess, because a man cannot catch himself doing a thing he decided to do.

You are able to put the deciding before the doing, and a thing chosen has never once been available to be caught at afterward. The Holy Spirit is the one present in a deliberate ordinary pleasure, and the word describes resting in love rather than getting anything out of it.

And stay a bit longer than you need to. Thirty seconds rather than five. That is the whole of it.