She will not come to Him in a mess and she has never once thought of that as a rule.
She would tell you she prays every day, and she does. But watch when.
Not on the bad days. On the bad days she waits.
She waits until she has slept, or until the thing has passed, or until she can talk about it without her voice going. She calls this composing herself. Her mother called it the same, and her grandmother before that, and it has been handed down in that house like the good plates.
So He has met the recovered version of her for thirty-one years.
He has met her on Sunday, tidy. He has met her after she pulled herself together on a Wednesday. He has never once met her at four in the morning in December with her face wrecked and nothing rehearsed, because that woman does not pray, that woman waits until she is fit to.
And here is the part that should make you stop.
The four in the morning version is the one who needs Him. She has been carefully keeping the only person with a need out of the room.
So let me ask you.
When did you last come to Him in the state you were actually in?
Read who He calls
There is an invitation everybody knows and almost nobody reads for its grammar, so we are going to read it for its grammar.
He is speaking to a crowd, and He opens the door, and listen to who He names as He opens it.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Matthew 11:28
Weary and burdened.
That is not a description of who may come in spite of their condition. It is the address on the invitation. It is who it is for.
Matthew 11 makes weariness the qualification rather than the obstacle, and the Spirit who moved that Gospel writer put the condition in the sentence as the reason for coming, so the state you keep composing yourself out of has never once been the thing keeping you out.
Now, plainly, because I love you too much to be gentle about this one.
Your composing is not humility. I know it feels like it. It feels like respect, like not turning up at somebody's house in a state, like the good manners your grandmother had.
But you have taken the exact condition He asked for and you have decided it is the condition that disqualifies you.
Matthew 11 says come to me, all you who are weary, and the Spirit is not waiting on the other side of that door for a version of you that has stopped shaking, which means thirty-one years of waiting until you were fit have kept the invited woman out.
And notice this too. He does not say come to me and I will make you fit and then we will begin.
He says come, and I will give you rest.
The rest is on the other side of the coming. It has never been the entrance requirement.
Matthew 11 puts the rest after the arrival rather than before it, and the Spirit was in that order, so waiting until you had rested before you came has been waiting for the thing that was going to be handed to you at the door.
Now here is the turn, and it is the hardest small thing in this whole article.
Go to Him ruined.
Not tidied, not rehearsed, not after you have slept and can speak in sentences. Go on the worst day, at the worst hour, looking exactly like whatever you look like.
You have been sending Him a representative for thirty-one years. Send the woman.
Matthew 11 names weary and burdened as the ones called, and the Spirit put that in the invitation rather than in the small print, so arriving wrecked has never been arriving wrong.
Thirty-one years of the recovered version. One four in the morning.
Declare this over yourself
Say these where you can hear yourself. Know what holds them up. This authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King. And you speak under His will, never over it. However He answers, and in whatever way He comes, the outcome is His.
- Fit state, you are a condition I added myself and He never once asked for you. Matthew 11 says come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and weary is the address on the invitation and not the obstacle to it.
- Composing myself, you were handed down in my family like the good plates and you have kept the four in the morning woman out of the room for thirty-one years, and in the name of Jesus you are finished. The Spirit is not standing behind that door waiting for me to stop shaking.
- Lord, Matthew 11 says come, and I will give you rest, in that order, so the rest was always on the far side of the coming. I am going on a bad day and I am not fixing my face first, and I have been sending You a representative and I am sending the woman.
Matthew 11:28
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