He cannot arrive anywhere without arranging it first.
It is not shyness and he would be irritated if you called it that. He is perfectly capable in a room and people like him.
It is a rule about arriving.
If he is going to somebody's house, he lets them know the day before. If he is calling, he texts to ask whether now is all right. If he is going to a building, he checks the hours, and if the hours are not published he does not go, because turning up at a place that might be shut and standing outside it is a small humiliation he has decided not to risk.
He would tell you this is consideration, and half of it genuinely is.
The other half is that he does not believe he is welcome anywhere he has not been expected.
And it has narrowed his life in a way that is invisible from outside, because everything he does looks completely normal and it is all arranged in advance, and the effect is that he has nowhere to go at eleven at night in February when something has gone wrong.
He found that out in February, when something went wrong.
He sat in his car for an hour and a half working through a list of people, and there was no one on it he could arrive at without warning, and so he sat there and then he drove home.
So let me ask you.
Where could you turn up, right now, without warning anybody?
They were built for people who could not send word ahead
There is a provision in the law that is one of the most humane things in the Old Testament, and the design of it is the argument.
Six towns were set aside, spread across the territory so that no one was ever too far from one, and the roads to them were to be kept clear.
And here is what they were for.
Select some towns to be your cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may flee.Numbers 35:11
Read the situation that is being planned for. The worst hour of somebody's life, arriving at speed, with no preparation, at any time of day or night.
Numbers 35 designs a place around the arrival of somebody who could not possibly have sent word ahead, and the Spirit who gave that law understood exactly how a frightened person actually moves, so being expected has never been the condition of being taken in.
Nobody ran to a city of refuge on an appointment.
That is the whole point of the provision. It exists precisely for the case where there was no time, no plan, no message sent, and no one waiting. The gates were the plan.
Now let me be careful, my friend, and you will see why.
I am not going to tell you any particular building near you is open, because I do not know, and it would be a cruelty to send somebody to a locked door on my say-so. And I am not going to say a word against anybody who locks a building, because there are reasons for that and they are usually good ones.
I am telling you about the shape of the provision rather than about any address.
Numbers 35 puts the readiness on the town rather than on the traveler, and the Spirit was in that design, which means the rule you have carried about needing to be expected has never once described how God arranges welcome.
You have been living as though you must be awaited. The refuge was built for people nobody was waiting for.
Now the turn, and it is one arrival long.
Go somewhere without telling anybody.
Not to prove a point and not to test anybody's welcome. Go, on your own, unannounced, to somewhere quiet that is open, and be there for a while, and then come home.
A church that happens to be unlocked. A park. A cathedral in a city you are passing through. A supermarket at midnight, if that is what there is.
I am not promising you that any particular door will be open, and I will not, because I do not know and you would deserve better than a guess. Find one that is.
Numbers 35 spread six towns across a territory so nobody would be too far from one, and the Spirit was in that arithmetic of distance, so a place you can reach without arranging it has never been a thing you have to earn.
Turn up somewhere. Tell nobody you went.
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.
- Notice, you are a courtesy I invented and you were never the condition of being let in. Numbers 35 designs six towns around the arrival of somebody who could not possibly have sent word ahead.
- Rule that says I am not welcome anywhere I have not been expected, you cost me an hour and a half in a car in February, and in the name of Jesus you are put down. The Spirit was in the keeping of those roads clear for people nobody was waiting for.
- Lord, Numbers 35 says a person may flee there, and nobody ever ran to a city of refuge on an appointment. I am going somewhere quiet today and telling nobody I went, and the gates were the plan all along.
Numbers 35:11
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.
