It Became Maintenance About Four Years Ago

He looks after his things and everybody who knows him would say so.

His tools are oiled. The truck gets its service done early rather than late. There is a shed at the back that would embarrass most people, not because it is impressive but because everything in it is where it goes.

And he keeps his faith the same way.

That is not a criticism from anybody else; it is his own description, arrived at on a beach in July while the tide was going out and he had nothing to do for about forty minutes.

He runs a check. He would not use that word but that is what it is: he notices when something has slipped and puts it back. He goes on Sunday because Sundays are part of the arrangement. He reads because a man who does not read gets thin, and he has watched that happen to people.

He prays before he eats and at night and when something goes wrong on a job.

And every part of that is in good order and has been for years.

And on the beach in July he found himself thinking: I have been maintaining this.

Not neglecting it. Maintaining it, carefully, the way you maintain anything that matters, checking it over and correcting the drift and keeping the whole assembly in working condition.

And an arrangement in good working condition is a thing.

It is not a Person, and somewhere about four years ago, and he cannot be more precise than that, the thing quietly took over from the Person, and nothing about the arrangement changed, which is exactly why nobody noticed including him.

He sat on that beach for a while and then he went home.

And you keep something in good order. You are conscientious, and everything is where it goes, and the whole assembly runs, and somewhere in it the One it was built around went quiet without anything breaking.

Let us press on to know Him

There is a sentence in Hosea that describes what is meant to be happening, and every word in it is about movement toward a person.

Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.Hosea 6:3

Let us press on to know the Lord.

Press on is a phrase about effort in a direction. Not maintain. Not preserve, and not keep in good condition, which are all words about holding something steady.

And what is being pressed toward is not a standard. It is the Lord, and the sentence goes on to describe Him arriving like weather, which is a thing that happens to a landscape rather than something the landscape achieves.

You are made for a pursuit rather than an upkeep, and the verb in that verse is about going somewhere. It is written, let us press on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3), and it is the Holy Spirit who turns maintenance into pursuit in a man, which is not a change of habits and is a change of what the habits are aimed at.

Now the maintaining, because it is a virtue and it needs saying.

You look after your things. Your tools are oiled and the truck is serviced early and the shed is in order, and that is a good way to be, and a great many people would be better off if they were more like you.

And the reason your faith is still standing after four years of the Person being quiet is precisely that you maintain things. A less conscientious man would have let it go and would be nowhere by now.

You have been kept in the vicinity of God by a virtue rather than by a feeling, and that is not nothing. Scripture says whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much (Luke 16:10), and it is the Holy Spirit who has been in a man's Sunday and his reading and his short prayers for four years, keeping the whole assembly close enough to be recovered.

And what happened on the beach.

You had forty minutes and nothing to do, and the thought arrived.

That is worth noticing as an event rather than as a problem. Nothing in your arrangement produced that thought. Maintenance does not generate a critique of maintenance. It came from outside the system, in a gap, while a man was doing nothing at all.

You were shown something in a gap and the showing did not come from you. It is written that He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth (Hosea 6:3), and it is the Holy Spirit who arrives like weather on a man sitting on a beach with nothing to do, which is the one condition maintenance never provides.

And the four years, and the fact that you cannot date it.

Nobody can. Things like this do not have a day, and the reason is that nothing goes wrong. There is no failure to notice. Every part of it keeps working, and a working system is invisible, which is what makes it possible to be four years into this and be a conscientious man.

You are not looking at a failure and there is nothing in the last four years to repair. Scripture says the Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth (Psalm 145:18), and it is His Spirit who has been near through all four of them, including the ones where the arrangement was the whole of what a man could feel.