I Do Not Want to Be Any Trouble

Marisa started counting at about half past two, and she was not proud of herself for it.

Rhona had come for the afternoon. That was the whole plan: come for the afternoon, sit in the kitchen, we will not do anything. She had been ill and then she had been sad and then it had been eight months, and Marisa had rung her four times before she said yes.

And she said it eleven times.

"I do not want to be any trouble."

Once at the door, before her coat was off. Once when the kettle went on. Once about the shortbread, which was already on the plate. Once when Marisa offered to run her home instead of the bus, once when she got the good blanket out because the back room is cold, once about the second cup, once when the dog put its head on her knee, which is not something anybody can be blamed for.

And every single time, Marisa said what you say. You are not, do not be daft, I have got it, honestly.

At about four, Rhona said it again about staying for something to eat, and Marisa put the pan down.

She said, "Rho. Can I say something and you not take it the wrong way?"

Rhona braced. You could see her do it.

"Every time you say that, I have to reassure you. So then I am doing the work. You came so I could look after you for an afternoon, and instead I have spent the afternoon looking after your worry about being looked after."

Rhona started to apologize for that, and then heard herself do it, and stopped, and the two of them laughed until Rhona had to take her glasses off.

Then Marisa said the quiet one.

"I know you think it is politeness. It is not, love. It is you keeping one hand on the door."

Now let me ask you about the twenty seconds before you pray.

There is a phrase, is there not. Something you attach. I know I have no right to ask. I know I do not deserve this. I know I have not been very good lately, but.

You would call it reverence, and you are not lying. Some of it is. But if you are honest, it is also insurance. It is a way of getting the disqualification in first, so that if the answer does not come, at least you had already conceded the point.

The instruction is confidence, and it is an instruction

Hebrews gives a command about how to approach God, and the command is the last thing a person like you would have written.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.Hebrews 4:16

With confidence. The Greek word underneath it means outspokenness. Freedom of speech. The way a citizen talks in their own city, or a child in their own kitchen, without editing.

And it is not offered as an option for the spiritually advanced. It is the instruction. Which means that the disclaimer you attach is not extra humility, it is a small, sincere refusal of a direct word.

So that we may receive mercy. Look at the order. You come first, and mercy is what you are coming to get. It is not something you demonstrate on the doorstep in order to be admitted.

So hear this said over you now. You are welcome to speak plainly to God tonight, without the preface, and the confidence is not presumption, it is obedience. That is written, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives an adopted person the nerve to actually use the freedom they were handed, which is why the words in this paragraph may feel like they are pushing on something.

Now let me tell you what your disclaimer does, because Marisa was right and it is worth seeing.

It moves the work.

When you open with I know I do not deserve this, God cannot simply give you the thing. He has to first deal with your objection to being given it. You have arrived with a piece of business that has to be settled before the actual business, and you brought it, and you bring it every single time.

And you already know the answer. That is the strange part. Ask you in daylight whether God receives sinners and you will say yes without hesitating. You are not asking a question. You are performing a concession, and a concession performed daily starts to feel like a fact.

You are received. Not in principle. Tonight, with the last fortnight exactly as it was.

The written word says draw near, and it says with confidence, and it says the throne is a throne of grace, which is a description of what is dispensed there. And the Spirit of God is the one who makes a nervous person able to walk up to a throne like that, in His own timing, not because they finally worked up the nerve.

Let me guard one flank, because a thoughtful reader will feel the edge of this.

Reverence is real. Nobody here is recommending casualness with God, and Scripture is full of people falling on their faces. But look at what happens every time somebody falls down in front of Him in the Bible: He tells them to get up. Every single time. The falling is honest, and the getting up is His instruction, and a person who stays down after being told to get up is not being more reverent. They are being less obedient.

There was a man five hundred years ago who could not get a sentence out to God without a preface, because he had been taught to approach as a criminal approaches a bench. What changed him was reading that the bench was a throne of grace and that the instruction to a child of the house was to speak freely at it. He remained a reverent man. He simply stopped apologizing for being in the room.