If you asked anybody on that road about Marva they would light up.
She knows the children by name and the dogs by name. She takes in parcels for four houses. She was the one who organized the collection when the family at the end had the fire, and she was the one who stood on a step in the rain and knocked on eleven doors to do it.
At Christmas there is a plate that goes round from her kitchen and everybody knows what is on it.
She is, without any competition at all, the warmest person on that street.
And not one of them knows a single thing about what she actually believes.
She worked this out in July at a barbecue in somebody's back garden, standing near the fence with a paper cup, and she has not been able to put it down since.
Somebody had mentioned that Marva was up early on Sundays. And a man she likes said, cheerfully, what is it you do on a Sunday then, Marva, is it a gym thing?
And Marva laughed her big laugh and said something like that, and everybody laughed, and the conversation went on, and it was fine.
Something like that.
She has been going to the same place for twenty-two years. She has buried two people out of that place. She has sat in the third row and had her life put back together more than once. And a man she genuinely likes asked her a direct, friendly question in a garden and she gave him a joke.
The awful part, and she is honest enough to name it, is that the joke worked. Everybody was pleased. Nobody was uncomfortable. She got to stay exactly what she is on that street, which is warm and funny and safe, and she went home and stood in her kitchen with her coat still on.
Because here is what she saw at that fence. Being loved by a street is not the same as being known by it.
She has been giving that road twenty-two years of kindness and not one sentence of herself.
And you may know that fence, and you may be the warmest person in your own road too, and the two things can sit together for years without anybody noticing.
The chain has a link in it that only a person can be
Take this off before we go a step further, because you have carried it home from that garden and it was never yours.
You are not the one who has to produce belief in anybody. You never were. Scripture gives you the speaking and keeps the believing entirely out of your hands, and it is the Holy Spirit, not your courage at a fence, who opens a person up. Set that down here in the kitchen with your coat on. It is heavy and it has kept a generous woman at a joke.
Now hear the chain, because it is a famous one and the point of it is not pressure.
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?Romans 10:14
Read it slowly and notice what it is doing.
It is a chain of ordinary steps, and every one of them belongs to somebody. Believing belongs to the person. Calling belongs to the person. And hearing requires a mouth, and the mouth is where you come in, and that is the whole of your link.
Not the believing. Not the calling. Not the result. The hearing.
And notice that the word for what fills that link is not argument and not persuasion. It is announcement. Somebody says a thing out loud in the presence of somebody else.
You have a mouth and a street. That stands written, and His Spirit is the one who does every other link in the chain, and He has never once made a woman responsible for a link that was never hers.
Now let me be careful, because there is a ditch on both sides and I am not putting you in either.
Nobody is telling you the twenty-two years of kindness were a substitute or a dodge. They were not. The collection in the rain and the plate at Christmas and the four houses of parcels are the real thing, and God saw every one of them, and none of it needs defending.
And nobody is telling you to turn your street into an audience, or to answer the next friendly question with a speech. If somebody ever gave you your road as a target with a number on it, that was wrong and you can put it down along with everything else.
The point is only this. You gave the man a joke because a joke keeps you safe, and safe is what you have been for twenty-two years. Scripture never once asked you to be safe, and His Spirit has never needed you to be.
Here is the tender part, and Scripture is gentle with it. You are afraid of costing yourself the position, and His Spirit knows exactly what that position cost to build.
You are the warmest person on that road and it is a good position and it has been earned honestly, and one plain sentence could change how a few people look at you, and you know exactly which few.
You are able to spend a little of it. Now, this week. Scripture puts the hearing in a person's mouth and leaves everything else with God, and His Spirit is the one holding the rest of the chain, and neither of them ever asked you to be liked.
And I will say the honest half, warmly. Something like that kept the garden comfortable and it left you standing in your own kitchen in your coat, and you have been standing there ever since.
So here is the turn, and it is smaller than you have been bracing for and it is not a speech. His word asks you for the hearing and His Spirit takes every other link.
Say one name, and let there be one true sentence in your week if one comes.
The name is the assignment. That is the whole of it: one neighbor, greeted by name, out loud, to their face. The sentence is not homework and nobody is checking, and if the whole week goes by and all you did was say evening, Delroy on the pavement, you have done exactly what this page asked and nothing is being held against you.
You are already in the chain. His word puts the hearing in a person's mouth and leaves the believing with God, and His Spirit is the one who carries every other link, and both of those were true in that garden while you were laughing.
I am not going to tell you what happens if you ever answer that man properly. That belongs to God and He works in His own way and in His own timing, and I will not put a promise in His mouth to round a page off. What I can tell you is what is already yours, and what is already yours is a street that loves you and a mouth that is allowed to be known.
Say the name. The rest is His.
Declare this over yourself
Say these standing in your own kitchen, out loud, with the coat off. Nothing here is a task and nothing here has to be earned; it is already yours in Christ, and it was yours at that fence in July while you were laughing. 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.
- Something like that, you are a good joke and you have never once been an answer. In the name of Jesus I put you down in this kitchen, because the man who asked me has a name and I can tell the person next to me.
- Fear of costing myself the position, you have kept me loved on that road and unknown on it for twenty-two years. Scripture says they cannot hear without somebody speaking, and the speaking is the only link in that chain with my name on it.
- Lord, You kept the believing and the calling entirely in Your own hands, and Your Spirit is the one who carries every link but mine. The nearest one is mine to greet, and I am saying a name out loud on that road this week.
Romans 10:14
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