She Keeps Asking To Come Over

There is one person who keeps asking.

Not everybody. Most people took the hint years ago and stopped, and that was a relief and also a loss, and you have not decided yet how you feel about it.

But there is one. And she keeps saying it. I could come to you. I do not mind coming over. Let me bring lunch to yours for once.

And you have used every excuse you own. The week is bad. The kids. Work. Let us meet in town, it is easier. You have said it is easier so many times that you can hear yourself say it now like a recording.

And here is where it has got to, and this is the part I want to talk about. You have started not replying as quickly. You have started letting a message sit until the moment for that particular offer has passed.

So the house is not costing you a visit any more. It has started costing you the friend.

There is a friend that sticketh closer

There is a line in Proverbs that is usually read as sentimental and is actually quite technical.

A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24, King James Version)

Sticketh closer than a brother.

That is a word about persistence. It is not about warmth or affection or how much somebody enjoys your company. It is describing a friend who stays attached when there is no obvious reason to.

And here is the thing I want you to look at directly. You have one of those. That is what all this asking is. She is not being polite. Polite stopped two years ago. She is the one in that verse, and she is doing the thing the verse describes, and she has been doing it for a long time with almost nothing coming back.

You are not friendless, and Proverbs 18:24 has never once described a friend who keeps asking as somebody being difficult. It is written that there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, which is a description of what she is doing right now, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person recognize what they have been receiving.

You have been protecting a house at the cost of the one person who would not go away. The word names the sticking friend as a distinct and rare thing, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a person able to see what they are about to lose.

She is not asking to inspect your house

Now let me say something plain, because I think a false picture has been running for a long time.

When she says I could come to you, she is not asking to see your house. She has no interest in your house. She is asking to sit in a room with a friend without paying for parking and without anybody having to leave the children with somebody.

The house is enormous in your imagination and it is not in the sentence at all.

And I will say the harder half too. If she came, she would see something. That is true and I am not going to lie to you about it. But what she would see and what you think she would see are two completely different things. She would see a house that has clearly had a hard few years. You are picturing a verdict. She would see a record of what those years cost, and never once a verdict on the woman who lives in it.

You are not about to be judged in the way you have been rehearsing, and there has never once been a version of that visit where the house was the point of it. Proverbs 18:24 puts the weight on the sticking rather than on the setting, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a rehearsed verdict out of a person's head.

But I am still not asking you to invite her. Not tonight and not this month. That is not the step.

You are permitted to prepare a route without a single decision about anybody coming down it, and preparing it has never once committed you to anything. It is written that the friend sticks closer than a brother whether or not a door opens, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a hallway cleared on a night when nobody is invited.

Clear the path to a chair she could sit in

So here is the whole of what I am asking, and it is fifteen minutes.

Start at the front door. Walk to the first chair somebody could actually sit in. Look at what is on that path and only that path.

Move it. Fifteen minutes and then stop, finished or not.

That is all. No invitation. No message. No decision. A cleared route in a house that is otherwise exactly as it was this morning.

You are able to make a way to a chair tonight, and making it has never once required you to use it. Proverbs 18:24 describes a friend who stays attached without conditions, and the Spirit of God is present in a cleared route that leads to an empty chair.