Telling Feels Like Handing Over Evidence

Every time you have got close to telling somebody, a particular thought has arrived.

If I say this, they will have it.

Not that they would use it. Most of the people you would tell would never use it. But they would have it, and it would be in the world, outside your head, in somebody else's possession, and it could not be taken back.

That is not how a person thinks about a piece of news. That is how a person thinks about evidence.

And I want to ask a question that sounds simple and is not. Evidence in what?

Because for evidence to exist, there has to be a case. Somebody has to be prosecuting something. And if you sit with it for a minute, you will find that there is a case running in your head, and it has been running for years, and you are the defendant in it, and the charge is roughly that you are the kind of person who lets things go.

The house is not the problem. The house is Exhibit A.

As far as the east is from the west

There is a line in the Psalms that is doing something legal and almost nobody reads it that way.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12, King James Version)

Removed our transgressions from us.

Now think about that as a matter of record. The distance is not described as large. It is described as infinite, because east and west never meet and cannot be measured against each other. There is no possible retrieval from that distance.

That is not a description of forgiveness as a feeling. It is a description of a record being made unavailable.

You are not standing under a charge, and Psalm 103:12 has never once described a God who retains a record to be produced later. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an infinite distance concrete for somebody living like a defendant, and the written word removes the transgressions rather than filing them.

And I want to say the pastoral thing carefully. A house is not a transgression and I am not calling it one. But the verse tells us something about the God in question, which is that He is not building a file. He is doing the exact opposite, at infinite distance, on purpose.

So there is no case in heaven. Whatever is running in your head, it is not being run from there.

You are not on trial, and Psalm 103:12 has never once described God as somebody who retains a record. It is written that the removal is as far as east from west, which is a distance with no retrieval in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that concrete for somebody who has been living like a defendant.

You have been guarding evidence in a case that has no prosecutor in it. The word puts the distance beyond measuring, and the Spirit of God is the one who tells a person there is no file.

What she would actually receive

Now the practical piece, because there is a real question underneath: what happens to information when you give it to somebody.

Here is what actually happens when you tell a friend the house is bad.

She receives one sentence. She feels something for about four seconds, most likely sympathy and a bit of recognition, because a surprising number of people have their own version of this. Then she thinks about what to say back. Then she says something. Then her day carries on.

You have never once handed anybody something they could use, and no friend has ever kept a sentence about a kitchen for three weeks. It is written that the removal is as far as the east is from the west, and the Holy Spirit is the one who dissolves a case that was never filed anywhere but in a person's own head.

She does not file it. She does not add it to a picture of you. In three weeks she will not have thought about it again unless you bring it up, because she is thinking about her own life, which is full.

That is what happens to information. It goes into a person who has other things on their mind.

The version in your head, where it enters a permanent record and changes your standing forever, is what happens to evidence. And your house is not evidence, because there is no case.

You were never handing anybody anything they could use, and there has never once been a court in which any of this was being heard. Psalm 103:12 removes the record to a distance that cannot be crossed, and the Spirit of God is the one who dissolves a case that was never filed anywhere but in a person's own head.

So tonight is one message, and the message is deliberately not a defense.

You are permitted to say one plain thing without arguing your side, and saying it has never once been a confession. It is written that the transgressions are removed rather than weighed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a person tells the truth without a defense attached to it.

Text one person

So here is the whole of what I am asking.

Pick one person. Send: the house is bad and I am working on it.

No context. No explanation of the year that did it. No reassurance about coping. No apology.

You are saying one plain thing without defending it tonight, and no defense has ever once been required where there is no trial. Psalm 103:12 removes the record beyond retrieval, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when a person tells the truth with nothing attached.

The reason for keeping it that short is that every extra clause is a defense, and a defense is something you offer in a case, and we are not in one.

Then put the phone down and clean nothing.

You are able to say one true thing tonight without defending it, and saying it has never once put anything into anybody's hands. Psalm 103:12 removes a record beyond retrieval, and the Spirit of God is present in eleven words sent to one person.