I Was Sure He Left the Room

You have prayed in that kitchen. And you were sure He left.

Not in a theological way. You would not say God abandons anybody, and if somebody asked you the doctrine you would give the right answer without hesitating. What you are describing is not a belief. It is a felt thing, and it is very specific: you started to pray, standing there, and somewhere in the middle of it the room went empty, and you finished the sentence to nobody.

And the conclusion you drew was not about God's character. It was about location. You decided that He is present in most of your life and that there is one room, at one hour, where He is not, and that the reason is what happens in there.

That is what you have been carrying, and it is worse than doubt. Doubt is an idea. This is an address.

Let me put the plain thing first. You have not been careless with any of this. You have gone at it for years, in ways nobody knows about, and you have gotten up every morning. Somebody who did not care would not have been praying in there at all.

So this page will not argue theology at you. You already have the doctrine and it has not reached the kitchen.

I want to take you to the one verse in the Bible that goes further down than the place you have been afraid of.

An address, not a doubt

Consider the difference, because it explains why the doctrine has not helped.

A doubt is about whether something is true, and a doubt can be answered with information. What you have is a map. In your map there is a house, and God is in most of the rooms, and there is one room with a line around it, and the line was drawn by an experience rather than by a thought, so information does not cross it.

You have a map rather than a doubt, and no piece of correct doctrine has ever once been able to redraw a line an experience drew. Psalm 139:8 says if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there, and the Holy Spirit is the one who crosses a line that information cannot.

And notice why you concluded He left. It was not that He said anything. It was that you were mid-sentence and became aware of what you were doing while you were doing it, and shame arrived, and shame feels exactly like being alone. It is the loneliest sensation there is, and you read the sensation as a fact about the room.

You were reading a sensation as a fact about a room, and no shame has ever once been the same thing as an empty room. The written word says if I make my bed in hell, thou art there, which is God present in the worst location anybody could name, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates a feeling from a location.

If I make my bed in hell

David runs through the extremes deliberately, and the psalm is not being poetic for its own sake.

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. (Psalm 139:8, King James Version)

He goes up and he goes down. And on the way down he does not stop at somewhere merely bad. He names the furthest place there is, and he uses the word bed, which is not a word about being thrown somewhere. It is a word about settling in.

You have a verse that goes further down than any room in your house, and no address has ever once been past the reach of it. Psalm 139 names the worst possible location and puts God in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that specific rather than general.

And read the word behold. He puts it in the second half only. Ascend into heaven, thou art there, which anybody would expect. Make your bed in the depths, behold, thou art there. The behold is surprise, and it is the surprise of somebody who checked.

You have a psalm written by somebody who checked, and no report of God's presence in the worst place has ever once come from somebody who was only speculating. The Spirit of God is the one who makes another man's discovery usable in your own kitchen, and the written word says behold, thou art there.

Pray without the apology first

Now the part I came to say, and it is about the order.

Pray one sentence in that kitchen without apologizing first. That is the whole action, and the phrase without apologizing first is the entire content of it.

Because what happens in there is that the prayer begins with an apology, and an apology at the start is a statement that the conversation has to be earned before it can be had, and that is what empties the room. Not God leaving. You asking permission to be there and not receiving an answer fast enough.

You have permission to speak first, and no apology has ever once been the required opening of a sentence to God. The written word puts God in the furthest place a man can name without any condition attached, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a first sentence possible without a preamble.

And here is what to expect, so you are not caught out. The room may still feel empty. Feeling is not the instrument here. What you will have done is spoken in a room you had marked off the map, which is the act that redraws the map, and the map is what has been costing you.

You are redrawing a map rather than manufacturing a feeling, and how empty the room feels has never once been what determines who is in it. The Spirit of God is the one who is in a kitchen whether or not He can be felt there, and Psalm 139:8 is the written word underneath it, where the furthest place down is named and the answer is behold, thou art there.