The Moment It Let Up He Went Straight Back

He meant every word of it. That is what he keeps coming back to, and it is what makes the rest of it so hard to look at.

He was in a corridor at three in the morning and it was completely real. He was not bargaining. He was not performing for anybody, because there was nobody there. He said a specific thing and he meant it in a way he does not think he has meant anything else in his life.

Eleven days later the situation resolved. Everybody was alright.

And he was back inside about three weeks.

What he cannot work out is what that says about the corridor. Because either the corridor was not real, which he does not believe, or it was real and it did not hold, and he does not know what to do with a thing that was real and did not hold.

The Bible names this exact pattern

There is a king in Exodus who does this repeatedly, and the writer names the mechanism out loud without any commentary.

Things get bad. He calls for Moses and says he has sinned and asks him to make it stop. Moses does. And then:

But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. (Exodus 8:15, King James Version)

When Pharaoh saw that there was respite.

Respite is the word. The pressure came off, and the change went with it, and the writer puts those two things in the same sentence because they belong in the same sentence.

That happens more than once in that story. It is not treated as a surprise.

You are not looking at something nobody has seen before. Exodus 8 names the pattern and the timing in one verse without softening it, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an honest diagnosis land as information rather than as a sentence.

But the pattern is a description, not a verdict

Here is what has to be said next, because the story of that king is a story about somebody who kept choosing it.

The description of a pattern is not the same as a ruling about a person.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

He which hath begun.

Paul is saying the starting was not the man's doing. And if the starting was not the man's, then the finishing is not on his shoulders either.

Which changes what a corridor at three in the morning was. It was not a promise a man made and then broke on his own. Something began, and Paul says who began it and who is completing it.

You are not the one who started it, and not the one carrying it to the end. Philippians 1 names who did the beginning and who does the performing, and it is His Spirit who is described as the deposit on the whole arrangement.

There is a man who was restored out loud

There is a scene on a beach that exists for exactly this situation.

Peter had said, publicly, with real conviction, that he would die before he denied Him. He meant it. Nobody reading it thinks he was faking.

Then he denied Him three times in a night.

And afterwards, on a beach, this happens.

He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. (John 21:17)

Three times, because there were three denials. It is deliberate and Peter feels it.

And then a job. Feed my sheep. Not a probation period and not a reduced role.

You are restored in the place where it went, rather than somewhere quieter. John 21 matches the three questions to the three denials and ends with an assignment, and it is the Holy Spirit who came on that same man weeks later in public.

Proverbs puts a number on the getting up

There is a short proverb that describes what a righteous man actually looks like, and it is not what people assume.

For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief. (Proverbs 24:16)

Seven times.

Read what makes the difference in that sentence. It is not the number of falls. Both men in the proverb are on the ground.

The distinguishing thing is the rising, and the count is high enough to rule out a man who has decided that three weeks after a corridor is his final answer.

You are described by the getting up rather than by the count. Proverbs 24 puts seven in the sentence on purpose, and it is His Spirit who makes an old number take the finality out of a relapse.

And the supply is described as arriving daily

There is a line in Lamentations, written in the middle of the worst chapter of a nation's history, about how often it comes.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:23)

New every morning.

Not new after a good run. Not new once somebody has proved something. The verse before says it is because His compassions fail not, which is a statement about the supply rather than about the recipient.

That is a delivery schedule, and it does not consult the previous day.

You are on a schedule that does not read yesterday first. Lamentations 3 says new every morning inside the darkest book in the collection, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a daily supply feel like something a man can actually turn up for.