I Saw Their Faces

Kalani was the one in the chair and he has thought more about the four seconds afterwards than about anything else in eleven years.

There were about six of them. Good people, all of them, who had asked whether they could, and he had said yes, and they had prayed properly and for a while and with real love.

And then it finished, and everybody opened their eyes, and there were about four seconds in which the room did not know what to do.

Nothing had happened. Nothing dramatic had been promised, and nobody had said anything reckless, and yet everybody in that room had been hoping for something and had arrived at the same moment together and found out at the same moment together that it had not come.

And Kalani, in the chair, watched six faces manage themselves.

He watched one of them almost say something and decide not to. He watched another go slightly bright and busy. He watched a third look at the floor, and that is the one he still thinks about, because that man had prayed the longest.

And what Kalani did, within about five seconds, was start looking after them.

He said something easy. He said he felt better for it, which was not exactly true. He made it comfortable for six people to leave a room, from a chair, while unwell.

Eleven years ago. And he has never told anybody that this, rather than the not being healed, is the part that comes back.

You may know those four seconds.

Maybe you were in the chair too. Maybe you also started managing the room before anybody managed you. And maybe nobody has ever asked you what that was like.

Where He is when the room goes quiet

There is a verse that does not explain anything and states a location, and the location is the point.

The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.Psalm 34:18

Nigh unto them.

It does not say He is nigh unto them and therefore the thing will happen. It does not offer an outcome, and it does not account for anything, and it makes no promise about the situation at all.

It says where He is.

And the people described are not those who have come through something. They are of a broken heart, present tense, in the state, at the time, and He is described as near them in it rather than as arriving once it lifts.

Which places Him, in that room eleven years ago, somewhere nobody was looking. Not in the four seconds of six people managing themselves. In the chair.

And He was near the man in the chair while the room did not know what to do. The written word states a location without attaching an outcome to it, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my paragraph who makes that reach somebody who has replayed four seconds for eleven years.

And healing is His and the asking is yours. The word puts nearness in His hands without making it conditional on a result, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit rather than explaining a room.

What you did in five seconds

Now the thing you did, because it is the part nobody has ever named for you and it deserves naming.

You were unwell, in a chair, at the center of a disappointment, and within five seconds you took responsibility for six other people's comfort.

That is not a small thing. It is, in fact, remarkable, and most people cannot do it at their best let alone in that position.

It also cost you, and the cost is the eleven years.

Because a person who manages a room never gets managed. Nobody asked you what those four seconds were like, and the reason nobody asked is that you made it unnecessary within five seconds by saying you felt better for it. You closed the door before anybody could come through it, kindly, at your own expense, and you have been on that side of the door since.

And you were the one who needed something in that room and you gave instead. The word says the LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and it puts the nearness with the one in trouble rather than with the ones managing their faces, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a re-sorting rather than a compliment.

And nothing about you is under review for what did not happen. The word says there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, and the Spirit supplies that to a man who has carried other people's disappointment for over a decade.

Nothing here is against them

Let me be clear, because a message like this could easily curdle and I do not want to hand you a grievance.

The six did nothing wrong.

Four seconds of not knowing what to do is what any decent person does in that situation. The one who looked at the floor had prayed the longest, which is why he could not look up, and that is love rather than failure. Nobody in that room had promised you anything and nobody said anything reckless, and you have said so yourself.

They were not equipped. Almost nobody is. There is a great deal of teaching about how to pray for somebody and almost none at all about what to do in the four seconds afterwards, which is the moment that actually determines what a person carries home.

And you are not required to hold anything against six people who loved you. The word says charity thinketh no evil, and the Spirit is the one who lets a man name a cost without converting it into a charge.