Underneath the Usefulness

Maeve found the thought in a waiting room, which is where a lot of things get found, and it was not a large thought and it did not feel dangerous at the time.

She was waiting for somebody else. That is worth saying. She was in that waiting room in an entirely supportive capacity, on a Thursday, with a book she was not reading, because a friend was having something done and had asked her rather than anybody else, which is normal.

She is the person who is asked. She has been the person who is asked since she was about twenty-two. She is competent in a way that people notice within a fortnight of meeting her, and she is discreet, and she does not repeat things, and the result is that a great deal of the private business of about nine households passes through her.

And in the waiting room, with the heating too high, she thought: if none of them needed me, what would be there.

Not in a panic. Almost idly. The way you notice a chip in a mug.

And then it did not go away.

She has turned it over on and off since Thursday, and the honest version, the one she has not said to anybody, is that she does not expect to find anything under it. She expects an empty room. She has arranged a life in which she is always the one being useful, and she is now fairly sure that the arrangement was not an accident, and that she made it very young for a reason she can half remember.

Nothing is wrong. Her health is fine, her work is fine, nobody has withdrawn anything.

What got her was the friend, coming out afterward, still groggy and not in charge of what she was saying, who took Maeve's arm in the corridor and said: I didn't ask you because you're good at this. I asked you because it's you. I don't care if you're any good at it.

I don't care if you're any good at it.

Maeve stood in a hospital corridor holding a coat over her arm and had to look at the floor, and she could not have explained it to a single one of those nine households.

And the sentence that arrived, standing there, had nothing to do with the appointment.

She thought: I have spent twenty-five years being asked for what I can do, and somebody has just told me it was never why.

Let me say the word properly first

Before we go on I want to be plain about what wealth means on this site, because the word is slippery and I would rather be honest than impressive with a woman standing in a corridor.

Wealth here means a portion. Not a balance, not a competence, not a place in nine households. A portion is the old table word for what is set down in front of somebody because they belong at that table, and Scripture takes that ordinary word and does something remarkable with it: God says of certain people that He Himself is their portion. That is the only sense the word carries here.

And let me be plain about what this article will not do. It will not predict anything. Nothing here is warning you that people are about to stop needing you, and nothing here uses that fear to make a point, because leaning on somebody's fear to teach them something true is a cheap way to do an honest job. Nobody is going anywhere. If you are genuinely short, that is real and deserves a real answer, and impossibleharvest.com in this same family is built for exactly that.

What I want to do is much narrower. I want to go and look at the room you are afraid is empty, and I would rather the word of God did the looking, with the Holy Spirit doing the work, than that I guessed.

A name that was given, not earned

John writes one line in his first letter that is closer to a shout than to a sentence, and the Holy Spirit has been carrying it to competent people ever since.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.1 John 3:1

Read the verb first. Given. Not achieved, not awarded, not confirmed after a period of review. Given, which is a word that says the whole transaction happened on the other side of the room.

Then read the last three words, which are the ones people skip. And so we are.

He does not say we should be called children of God and one day it might be true. He says the name has been given, and then he closes the sentence by stating flatly that the thing the name describes is now the case. The title and the reality arrived together.

That is what is under the usefulness. Not a report on your character. Not a summary of what you have done for nine households. A name that was given to you, and a fact that follows it.

You are not a hollow woman for the thought in that waiting room. You are somebody who built a whole life around being asked for what she can do, very young, for a reason she can half remember, and who has quite reasonably concluded that if the doing stopped there would be nothing to see. The written word does not scold anybody for that, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes the difference between agreeing with a verse about being a child of God and being able to sit in an empty room without flinching.

And here is what is already true of you today, before anybody needs anything. You are rich in the place that holds. His word says the name has been given and so we are, present tense, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a settled fact in a body rather than a doctrine on a page.

What is actually in the room

Think about what got you in that corridor. It wasn't gratitude. You have been thanked constantly for twenty-five years.

It was: I don't care if you're any good at it. It was somebody, temporarily unable to be tactful, telling you the actual reason, which was not the competence. You were starving to be wanted for something other than the doing, and you still are, and the written word treats that hunger as reasonable rather than as vanity, and it is the Holy Spirit who says so to a person and not merely about them.

That is the honest thing under the waiting room. You are not afraid of being unneeded. You are afraid that the room under the usefulness is empty, and that everybody, including you, would find out at the same time.

Here is what the word has already settled about you, so that His Spirit can settle it in you tonight. The room is not empty and it never was. Jesus was called beloved out loud before He had done any of the work He is famous for, which means the name came first in His life too, and He was in that waiting room while the heating was too high.