I Ask As If It Is For Somebody Else

There is a friend and he does not exist.

He turns up whenever you need something explained. He has your exact problem, in your exact circumstances, and he never has a name.

I have a friend who is having trouble with. Somebody I know cannot work out how to. A fellow at the club was asking me about.

And the person you are talking to answers, and the answer helps, and you take it home and use it.

It works. That is worth saying, because it has been working for about two years and I am not going to tell you it has not.

But you are carrying two things now instead of one.

There is the original difficulty, which is the thing you actually wanted to know. And there is the friend, who has to be maintained. You have to remember what you told whom about him. You have to keep his circumstances consistent. You have to make sure nobody asks a follow up question you cannot answer.

The disguise has become a second job, and it costs more every month, and the original difficulty has not moved an inch.

The truth shall make you free

There is a sentence about truth and freedom, and the second half of it is the practical part.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32, King James Version)

Shall make you free. Free is a word about weight and about movement. It is what happens when something that was holding a person stops holding them.

And the thing that produces it, in that sentence, is not effort. It is truth, plainly known.

You are handed a truth that makes a man free, and no plain fact has ever once been heavier to carry than the arrangement built to hide it. John 8:32 says ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a practical promise rather than a saying on a wall.

Notice the verse just before it, because it changes what this one is about. Jesus is speaking to people who have believed him, and he says, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.

Indeed. Actually. Not in appearance.

The whole passage is about the difference between the appearance of a thing and the thing itself, which is exactly the territory you have been living in for two years.

You have been living in the exact territory that passage is about, and no appearance of a thing has ever once been the same as the thing itself. The Holy Spirit is the one who tells the difference between indeed and in appearance, and it is written that the word indeed is put there deliberately.

And notice that freedom is described as an outcome rather than an effort. Nobody in that verse strains at anything.

The truth is known, and the freedom follows, in that order, without a struggle in between.

You were never going to have to fight your way out of this, and no freedom in that verse has ever once been described as something a man had to work at. The Spirit of God is the one who lets an outcome follow a plain fact, and Scripture puts the knowing first and the freeing second with nothing in between them.

What the friend actually costs

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not retire a man who does not exist.

Count the maintenance. There are four or five people who have heard about him, and each of them has a slightly different version, and you keep track of which is which.

There is the risk of a follow up question. Somebody asking how he got on. Somebody offering to talk to him directly. Both of those have happened and both required inventing something on the spot.

And there is the part nobody sees, which is that every answer you get is aimed at him rather than at you. So the advice is slightly wrong, every time, because it was built for a man with slightly different circumstances.

You are receiving answers built for somebody who does not exist, and no advice has ever once fitted properly when it was aimed at an invented man. The Spirit of God is the one who counts the actual cost of an arrangement, and John 8:32 puts the freedom immediately after the plain truth.

And here is the second half, which is the one that matters.

The friend was invented to prevent something. Some moment, at some point, where a man asked a plain question and it cost him something.

That moment was real. I am not going to pretend it was imaginary. But it was one moment, some years ago, and the friend has been employed full time ever since to prevent a repeat that has not been checked once.

Nobody ever told you it could be checked. That is a gap in the teaching and it is not a fault in the man.

You have been preventing a repeat of one afternoon for two years, and no single occasion has ever once earned itself a permanent staff member. The written word puts the freedom on the far side of the plain fact, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what an old moment has been costing him since.

Say the word I

Now the small thing, and it is one word.

I am not going to suggest you tell anybody about the friend. There is nothing to confess and nobody has been harmed, and an announcement would make an occasion out of something that can end quietly.

Ask one thing this week as yourself, and say the word I in the sentence.

You are able to put yourself into your own sentence, and one plain question asked in a man's own name has never once cost him his standing anywhere. John 8:32 puts the knowing of the plain thing before the freedom, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a man asks as himself for the first time in two years.

Choose somebody who has never met the friend. That is important, because it means nothing has to be undone and no story has to be unpicked.

Then ask it with the word I in it. I cannot work out how to. I have never understood.

The word I is the whole exercise. Everything else can stay exactly the same.

And it will feel like standing in a doorway with the light behind you. That is not exposure. That is what everybody else feels like all the time, and it turns out to be perfectly survivable.

You are standing in your own sentence for the first time in two years, and one word has never once been the thing that lowered a man in anybody's eyes. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the second where a man decides whose name to use, and it is written that the freedom follows the truth without a struggle in between.