He Is Furious at Somebody Who Is Already Dead

It is worse than being angry at somebody who is alive and he has worked out why.

An argument with a living person has an end in it somewhere, even a bad end. There is a version where you say the thing and they say something back, and it goes badly, and at least it went somewhere.

This one has no end available. He can only write both parts. And when he writes the other man's part it always comes out either too reasonable, which is a lie, or like a cartoon, which is also a lie.

Six years. And there is a specific afternoon, about four months before, when it could have been said and was not, and he has been back to that afternoon more times than he could count.

What he has never told anybody is that the funeral was the worst of it, not because of the grief, but because of the sentences. People stood up and said things about the man that were true, and he stood at the back with a completely different set of true things, and nobody in that room will ever hear them.

A man in the Bible refused to be quiet about it

There is a sentence in Job where he says outright that he is not going to hold it in, and it is one of the strongest things anybody says in the collection.

Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. (Job 7:11, King James Version)

I will not refrain my mouth.

He is announcing it. He is not apologizing in advance and he is not softening it with a clause about knowing he should not.

And where he takes it is the part that matters. He does not take it to his friends, who are sitting right there and have been talking at him for chapters. He says it upward.

You are permitted to say it at full strength. Job 7 has him announcing that he will not hold it in and taking it in one direction, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old refusal feel like an instruction rather than a warning.

God says whose department the settling is

There is a sentence in Romans that is usually heard as a warning and is more useful as an assignment.

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (Romans 12:19)

Vengeance is mine.

That is not God saying nothing should be settled. It is God saying the settling belongs to a department, and that a man does not work in it.

Which matters more here than in almost any other case, because there is no possible way for a living man to settle something with somebody who has died. He is holding a case that cannot be heard in any court he has access to.

Romans 12 says there is a court and it is not his.

You are holding a case that belongs somewhere you cannot file it. Romans 12 assigns the accounting to a specific place, and it is His Spirit who makes handing a file over feel different from dropping it.

Paul did it in writing about a specific man

There is a small line at the end of a letter where Paul does exactly this about somebody by name.

Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works. (2 Timothy 4:14)

He names him. He says what he did. And then he hands it over in one clause, and moves on to something else in the next verse.

He does not pretend it did not happen. He does not describe himself as having got past it. He also does not carry it for the rest of the letter.

That is a working example of what handing something over actually looks like, and it is short, and it is specific, and it is in writing.

You are given a worked example rather than an instruction alone. 2 Timothy 4 names the man, names the damage, hands it over and moves on, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old aside show a man what the act looks like.

The verb for it is a throwing word

There is an instruction in Peter about weight, and everything is in the verb.

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

Casting.

That is not putting something down gently, and it is not letting something go, which is a phrase people use that describes nothing anybody can actually do.

It is throwing. It is what a man does with something he wants out of his hands and away from him, and it requires a direction and something on the other end.

You are given a verb that requires somewhere for it to land. 1 Peter 5 uses a throwing word and names who is on the other end, and it is His Spirit who makes an old instruction give a man somewhere to put six years.

And the psalm says who takes delivery

There is a line in Psalm 10 that names the receiving party.

Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. (Psalm 10:14)

Thou hast seen it.

That comes first, before anything is handed over. The seeing is established before the committing.

Which speaks to the funeral. Somebody stood at the back with a different set of true things, and nobody in that room heard them, and the psalm says the first fact is that they were seen.

You are not holding a set of true things nobody witnessed. Psalm 10 puts the seeing before the handing over, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old order do something for a man who stood at the back.