A quiet street with a low wall and a short path and a door with a bell that he has never pressed.
He is on the sidewalk. He has been on the sidewalk for about four minutes.
Mr Aldiss. Sixth form. Two years of a subject that turned into a degree that turned into a working life, and one particular afternoon in the spring of the second year when he had decided to leave and a man of about fifty gave him forty minutes and did not once tell him what to do.
He has known for two years that he should come. It started with something at a reunion he did not go to, and then somebody said he was not well, and then somebody said he was better, and the whole time there has been a thing in his chest with the shape of a visit in it.
He has rehearsed it. That is the actual problem and he knows it.
He has a version where he says the thing about the afternoon in the spring. He has a version where he does not, because saying it would be enormous and Mr Aldiss might not remember it, and a man of eighty being told that a conversation he does not remember shaped a stranger's life is a strange gift to give somebody.
He has a version where he brings something and a version where bringing something is worse.
And every rehearsal has ended with the same conclusion for two years, which is that it has been left too long, and a visit at two years is now a thing that would require explaining, and the explaining is the part he cannot get past.
He is on the sidewalk with the bell four feet away.
If you owe somebody something and have rehearsed it until the length of the delay became the reason, you know that path. And you know that the rehearsing has been the mechanism the whole time.
The word, and then a proverb with a hand in it
Let me stand on the wall with you and say the plain thing, because there is a bell four feet away.
The problem is not the two years. Two years is nothing to a man of eighty and it will not be the first thing in his head when the door opens.
The problem is that you have been drafting, and drafting has been functioning as doing, and it has produced two years of nothing while feeling like sustained attention to a person you love.
So let me put the word straight first.
Blessed does not mean having got there earlier. It means the favor of God is resting on a person, His face is turned toward them. It is about where He is looking. It is on you on this sidewalk four feet from a bell.
Now the proverb, and I want you to look at the second half of it, because everybody quotes the first.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.Proverbs 3:27
When it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
That is the condition, and it is the only one in the sentence. Not: when you have the right words. Not: when the timing is good. Not: when you have worked out whether to bring something.
When it is in the power of your hand.
And it is. It has been for two years. It is a train fare and an afternoon and you are standing on the sidewalk.
You have a condition that has been met for two years and it is the only condition in the verse. Proverbs 3:27 attaches the doing to the power of the hand rather than to the quality of the preparation, and it is the Holy Spirit who is at work in what is actually possible to a person rather than in what they have drafted.
To whom it is due
Now the first half, because that phrase does something you have not noticed.
Them to whom it is due.
Due. That is the language of something owed. Not a favor, not a kindness, not a nice gesture. Something that belongs to the other person and is currently being held.
And you knew that. That is the word you have been using in your own head for two years, and you were right, and nobody told you the Bible uses it too.
So what you have been doing is not failing to be generous. It is holding something that is somebody else's.
That should be uncomfortable and it is, and I am not going to talk you out of it, because it is the accurate description and accuracy is what will get you up that path.
You are holding something that belongs to somebody else, and the verse calls it due rather than kind. Proverbs 3:27 uses the language of debt rather than of charity, and it is the Holy Spirit who convicts about the actual thing rather than about the two years of drafts around it.
And here is the thing about the length of the delay, which is the conclusion every one of your rehearsals has reached.
Two years is not too long. Two years is a number that only exists in your head. Mr Aldiss is not running a clock on a visit he does not know is coming. There is no counter on that door.
The delay is real to exactly one person on this street and it is not the one behind the door.
You have a clock running that exists in one head and it is not the head of the man in that house. Scripture puts the condition on the power of the hand and never once on the elapsed time, and it is the Holy Spirit who is able to show a person that the obstacle they have been standing behind was constructed on their own side of it.
What to say when he opens it
So here is the practical part, since you have four minutes of sidewalk left in you at most.
You do not need the speech. Both versions are too big and you know they are, which is why neither has ever been used.
Say: I was in the area, I have been meaning to come for ages, I wanted to say thank you for the sixth form.
That is it. Twenty two words and none of them requires him to remember an afternoon in the spring.
And then let him talk, because a man of eighty who has been visited by a former pupil will do the talking and it will be about something else entirely within about ninety seconds, and that is not a failure of the visit, that is the visit.
If it comes up naturally, tell him the thing about the afternoon. If it does not, it does not, and it will still have been given, because you came, which is the content.
You have twenty two words available that require nothing of him at all. Proverbs 3:27 asks for the good to be given rather than for it to be explained, and it is the Holy Spirit who is at work in an arrival rather than in a speech.
And nothing comes back to you for it. No absolution for two years and no settling of anything. If you go up that path in order to stop feeling a way, that is a different errand, and it is not the one in the verse.
And do not tell anybody afterwards.
So here is what I want to hand you before your four minutes are up.
The rehearsing was the mechanism. It felt like caring and it functioned as a wall, and it has taken two years off a visit that would have taken an afternoon.
You are blessed on this sidewalk today, two years on, with the bell four feet away, and blessed means the favor of God is resting on you here. Proverbs 3:27 attaches the whole thing to the power of the hand rather than to the quality of the words, and it is the Holy Spirit who is at work in an arrival rather than in a draft.
So take the word. Not the version where a visit has to be worthy of the delay. The proverb's. Say it over the two years you have actually had, the reunion you did not go to, the news that he was not well and then that he was better, the two versions of the speech and the two versions about bringing something, and mean by it what it means: it is due, and it is in the power of my hand, and I am four feet from the bell.
Twenty two words. Then let him talk.
You have a hand with the power to do it in it, and that has been true every single day of the two years. Proverbs 3:27 names one condition and it has been met the whole time, and His Spirit is the one who has kept the thing in your chest rather than letting it go quiet.
Declare this over yourself
Say this out loud on the sidewalk. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the standing to go up that path came with Him and not with having the right words ready. Scripture is under every line here and the Holy Spirit carries it, not the quality of the speech. What he remembers, or does not, is His to hold, in His own way and in His own time, and I am not going to guess it for you. Your part is to say it, mean it, and press the bell, and nothing comes back to you for it.
- Two years of rehearsing what I would say, you are drafts in my own head and you are not a door I have locked. Proverbs 3 says withhold not good from them to whom it is due when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
- Clock that says two years has made it too late, get out, in the name of Jesus. It is written that the only condition is the power of my hand, and that clock is running in exactly one head on this street and it is not the one behind the door.
- Lord, it is due and it has been in the power of my hand every day for two years. Your favor is on me on this sidewalk, and I am pressing the bell and saying twenty two words and letting him talk.
Proverbs 3:27
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