The Bell Goes And My Whole Body Reacts

It goes, and before you have thought anything at all, your body has already done four things.

You have gone still. Your stomach has dropped. You have worked out in about half a second whether you can be seen from the window. And you have started calculating, without deciding to, how far into the hall a person would be able to see if you opened it the width of your shoulder.

All of that happens before you know who it is. It happens if it is a parcel. It happens if it is somebody collecting for something. It happens when you are expecting it.

And I think the thing that has started to trouble you is not the bell. It is that you have noticed you are refusing people now without making a decision about it. Somebody says they might call in, and you hear yourself say next week would be better, and next week you say the same thing, and you did not choose that. Something chose it in you.

I want to name what is actually happening, because the name matters. You are living braced. Not anxious in general, not unwell, just braced, specifically and constantly, against your own front door. That is exhausting in a way that does not show, and you have been doing it for a long time.

And underneath the bracing is a sentence you have never said out loud, which is roughly: if anybody sees this, they will know what I am.

That sentence is not true. Let me say what is true instead. It is a house that got away from you. That is all it is. You are not hiding a crime.

Fear thou not, for I am with thee

There is a line in Isaiah that arrives to people in exactly this posture, and the middle of it is where the help is.

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (Isaiah 41:10, King James Version)

Fear thou not, for I am with thee.

Now, that opening gets quoted so often it can go past you like a fridge magnet. So look at the second clause instead, because that is where the weight sits. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God.

Dismayed is the right word for what happens in your hall. Dismay is not big dramatic terror. Dismay is the thing that goes through you and takes the strength out of your arms and leaves you standing very still. That is the two seconds after the bell, described exactly.

And the answer given is not a technique. He does not tell them how to stop feeling it. He tells them who is standing there while they feel it, and then He says three things in a row that are all about being held up rather than about performing: strengthen, help, uphold.

You are held up in the two seconds when your strength goes, and it has never once depended on you not feeling the dismay. Isaiah 41:10 answers dismay with presence rather than with a method, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes I am with thee land in a hallway rather than in a sermon.

One route is the whole job

Here is the practical thing, and it is smaller than you are expecting.

You do not need the house ready. You need one route.

From the front door to the first chair somebody could sit in. That is it. Not the room. Not tidy. A path a person can walk down and a place they can sit at the end of it, and everything either side of that path can stay exactly as it is.

Because what you have been picturing, every time you say next week would be better, is a whole house being ready for inspection. That is why it is never next week. Nobody could get there from where you are. But one route is a real distance, and you could do it tonight or across four evenings, and it changes what is possible without changing the house.

And notice what one route actually does. It does not make you a person who has people round. It makes you a person who could, if you wanted, on a day of your choosing. That is a different thing and it is the thing you have lost.

You are able to make one route through your own house, and it has never once required the rest of it to be ready. Isaiah 41:10 says I will strengthen thee and I will help thee without setting a standard first, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a person strength for the size of thing that is actually in front of them.

What I am not going to ask you to do

I want to be plain about something, because a lot of writing about this makes a jump here and the jump loses people.

I am not going to tell you to invite anybody in.

Not this week, not when the path is done, not at all. That is not the step. If somebody tells you the goal is to have people over, they have skipped the part where your body reacts before you can think, and you will nod and agree and quietly never do it, and then you will have failed at one more thing.

Clear the route. That is the whole assignment. What you do with it afterwards is yours and there is no timetable on it.

Isaiah 41:10 says be not dismayed for I am thy God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person get ready for something without being pushed through the door of it.

You are preparing a way through your own house, and nobody has ever once been owed a visit at the end of it. The written word says I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a person steady without hurrying them.