He won it again on Tuesday, if that is the word, and it left him with nothing.
Aviel does not enjoy conflict and he is not one of those men who goes looking. But somebody at the table raised something that he has thought about for twenty years, and he answered it carefully and completely, and the person conceded, and the table moved on satisfied.
He is very good at this. He has read for two decades. He knows where the difficulties are and he does not pretend they are not there, and when he answers something he answers the strong version of it rather than the weak one, which is why people trust him.
And walking to the car he noticed that he felt nothing whatsoever.
Not deflated. Not proud. Nothing.
And a question arrived that he has been carrying since, and it is this: when was I last glad about it?
He can date the last time he was right about something. Tuesday. He could date the time before that too.
He cannot date the last time he was glad.
He has looked. There was something at his daughter's wedding, two years ago, during a moment nobody planned, and there was an afternoon a while before that when he was walking and something came up in him and he stopped in the road.
He is not sure whether that afternoon was four years ago or seven.
He is forty-eight. He has spent twenty years making sure he is not wrong, and he has succeeded, and somewhere in the succeeding the other thing went quiet, and nobody noticed, including him, because being right is loud and being glad is not.
And the part that has kept him awake since Tuesday is not guilt. It is a specific worry. If gladness is the thing that gives out first, and accuracy carries on perfectly well without it, then a man could be entirely correct for the rest of his life and hollow the whole time, and there would be no external sign at all.
And you may know that walk to the car. You may be able to hold any room you are put in, and you may not be able to date the last time it made you glad.
Scripture calls the joy a strength, which means it is load bearing
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it since Tuesday and it was never yours.
You are not hollow. You never were. Scripture treats gladness as a structural component rather than a decoration, which means its going quiet is a load matter and not a character verdict, and it is the Holy Spirit, not your accuracy, who supplies it. Set it down here on the table. It is heavy and it has been walking to the car with you all week.
Now hear the sentence, and hear who is being spoken to.
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.Nehemiah 8:10
That is said to people who have just heard the word read out for hours and have understood it and are weeping because they see how far off they have been.
They are not being careless. They are being extremely serious and accurate, and they are correct about their own situation.
And they are told, in the middle of that, not to grieve, and given a reason: the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Strength. Not reward. Not decoration. Not the feeling you get when things are going well.
It is what holds the structure up. Which means that in a man who is entirely right and not at all glad, the correct part is fine and the load bearing part has gone quiet, and Scripture treats that as something to be attended to rather than tolerated.
You are able to have it back. Not one day when you deserve it. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who supplies gladness, and He has never once distributed it on the basis of accuracy.
Now let me be careful, because there is a ditch here and I have no intention of putting you in it.
Nothing here says twenty years of careful reading was a waste or that being right is a vice. It is not. You answer the strong version of an argument rather than the weak one, and that is an honest man's habit, and it has kept people from being talked out of things by bad arguments. Scripture is not against knowing what is true.
And nothing here is telling you to stop, to soften anything, or to trade accuracy for warmth. That is a false exchange and it costs people dearly.
The point is only that the two are separate systems, and one of them has been running unattended for a long time.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture handles it gently. Gladness cannot be pursued directly and you know that, which is why you have not tried, and His Spirit is the one who supplies it anyway.
You are a precise man and a thing that cannot be worked at is genuinely difficult for you. So you have left it alone, and left alone is exactly what it cannot survive.
The way back in is not an argument and it is not an effort. It is one plain sentence with nothing to defend in it, said where nobody can hear you, and Scripture calls the joy His and His Spirit is the one who carries it.
So here is the turn, and it is small, and there is nothing in it to be right about.
Say one thing you believe out loud, in your own words, using none of the phrases you would use at that table.
That is the whole of it. One sentence. Somewhere on your own, where there is nobody to concede anything.
The rule is what does the work: nothing arguable. If a sentence arrives that could be defended, put it down. You are looking for the plain thing underneath the position, and it will sound almost embarrassingly simple, and that is the correct outcome, because His word is not held up by your defending and His Spirit does not need the strong version.
It is not a technique for producing gladness. Nothing produces gladness. It is simply the one place where a very accurate man can stand without needing to be accurate.
You are able for it tonight. His word says the joy of the Lord is your strength and says it to people in the middle of being right about their own failure, and His Spirit is the one who supplies it, and neither of them ever charged for it.
I am not going to tell you it comes back tonight or this month or what it will feel like. That belongs to God and He gives it in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth so that a page can close well. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is a strength that is His rather than something you generate.
Say the simple sentence. There is nobody there to answer it.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing on your own, out loud, with nobody to answer. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours on the walk to the car on Tuesday. Scripture is what these lines stand on, His Spirit is the one who makes them live, and the outcome is His, answered in His own way and in His own timing.
- Nothing I felt walking to the car, you are not humility and you are not maturity, and you are not the price of being careful. In the name of Jesus I name you out loud tonight, because I have the thing itself and not only the accent.
- Habit of leaving alone the one thing I cannot work at, you have let a load bearing part go quiet for years while I kept the other one polished. Scripture says the joy of the Lord is my strength, and a strength is structural rather than decorative.
- Lord, You said it to people in the middle of weeping over how far off they were, and Your Spirit is the one who supplies it, and You have never once issued it for accuracy. What I believe is mine underneath the position, and I am saying one simple sentence of it out loud tonight.
Nehemiah 8:10
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
