Six twenty for a seven thirty start. Every time. Twenty years.
He sits in the truck. He has a thermos and he does not read anything and he does not use the phone much, and if you asked him what he does out there for seventy minutes he would say he likes to be settled before a thing starts, and that is true and it is about a third of it.
It is not only church. It is the dentist, the ballgame, a funeral, the airport at an hour that makes his wife despair. It is anything at all with a time on it.
He is fifty-eight. He has been forgiven for twenty years and he knows it, and there is nothing shaky about it. He took a thing where it needed to go when he was thirty-eight, on a Tuesday, in a room, and something settled in him that has never once come loose since.
And every time there is a time on something, he arrives like a man reporting in.
Because underneath twenty years of six twenty, unstated, never examined, there is a condition being met. Early is not lateness avoided. Early is a demonstration. It is a man showing, without having to say anything, that his conduct is exactly what it should be, in case anybody is checking.
Maybe you have a six twenty. It may not be time. It may be the state of a truck, or a certain kind of thoroughness, or never once being the one who forgot. And you are not in doubt about being forgiven, and you would say so plainly, and the whole shape of your week is a man reporting in.
Sit down out here with a plate. That is deliberate too.
Probation is a legal condition and it ended
Let me put it the way an old preacher would, which is plainly, because this is a legal matter and not a mood.
Probation means the sentence stands, suspended, and conduct is observed, and the observing is what holds the suspension in place. A man on probation is not free. He is out on terms, and he knows the terms even when nobody has ever written them down.
That is exactly what six twenty has been for twenty years. Early, every time, so that the record shows what it needs to show, in case there is a review.
And there is no review. Not scheduled. Not overdue. It was disposed of on a Tuesday in a room twenty years ago and there has been no jurisdiction since.
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.Romans 8:2
Read the tense on that verb. Has set free. Done, at a point, and not a process under supervision. And Jesus said the same thing in His own voice in John 8, that whoever the Son sets free is free indeed, and indeed is not a decoration: it means actually, in fact, as opposed to in name or on paper or on terms. You were set free indeed and not released on conditions, and John 8 is where the Son says it in His own voice, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a word like indeed land on a man sitting in a truck at six twenty in the morning.
You were adopted rather than paroled, and Romans 8 says you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but the Spirit of adoption as sons, and the Holy Spirit is the one that verse names as the difference between the two arrangements. Parole gets reviewed. Adoption does not.
Your punctuality was never contemptible
Now something I want said carefully, because a paragraph like that could be used to make twenty years of showing up look foolish, and it is not foolish.
Nobody has ever once been left waiting on him. That is not nothing. There are people in that congregation who have been driven places, on time, for two decades, and there is a whole reputation attached to your name in that county, and none of it is canceled by anything in this article.
The reliability is good. It is still good. It is not going to stop and it should not stop.
What is coming out is not the punctuality. It is what has been sitting underneath it.
You were never demonstrating anything to anybody who was watching, and Titus 3 says He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness but according to His own mercy, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can lift a demonstration out from under a good habit and leave the habit standing. Nobody was ever taking attendance. There has been no register for twenty years.
This is not a new rule
And one more before the turn, because a man like you will already be working out how to comply with this article.
There is no new practice here. Nobody is asking you to be late, or to arrive at exactly the right time as a discipline, or to institute a policy of turning up twelve minutes before. You would be very good at that within two weeks and it would be the same probation with a different arrival time.
One thing, once. That is all any of this is.
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.Galatians 5:1
Look at what standing firm actually means in that sentence, because it is not effort. Paul is not telling anybody to work harder at being free. He is telling them not to put a yoke back on that has already been taken off. Standing firm is a refusal, not a performance.
You are standing in a freedom that was handed over and not lent, and Galatians 5 says for freedom Christ has set us free, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man from picking a yoke back up out of habit.
So here is what is happening out here, with a plate in your hand and nobody looking at a clock.
You are not being told to stop showing up, and nothing here says twenty years of six twenty was foolish. You are being told that the terms ended on a Tuesday when you were thirty-eight and that nobody has been observing your conduct since, and that a man who cannot arrive at the ordinary time is a man who was never told his probation was over.
You are not on probation and you never were, and John 8 says whoever the Son sets free is free indeed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes indeed mean actually rather than on paper. There is no review. There is no register. There has not been one for twenty years.
You have a freedom that was handed over rather than lent, and Galatians 5 says for freedom Christ has set us free, so stand firm and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery, and the Spirit is what keeps a man from picking a thing back up out of pure habit. Come at the ordinary time. Not as a discipline. As a fact about who you are in that building.
And if this goes deeper than a truck at six twenty, if you are not sleeping, or the reason you cannot arrive on time like everybody else goes back to something you have never told a living soul, please get a real person into it: a counselor, your doctor, a pastor. If you have thought about ending your life, call or text 988 in the United States, or your local emergency number or crisis line, today. That is not weak faith. That is a man calling for help the way he would call for a tow, and God is not disappointed in you for it.
Declare this over yourself
Say these in the truck before you go in. You have the standing because Christ is in you, and Scripture says this authority came as a gift and not as a return on twenty years of being early. The Holy Spirit is what carries them, not the volume. And whatever He does next, and when, is entirely His, in His own way and in His timing, which is exactly why these get said today.
- Habit of reporting in, you are ended in the name of Jesus. It is written that whoever the Son sets free is free indeed, and indeed means actually and not on paper and not on terms.
- Review I have been arriving early for, get out of this truck. Scripture says for freedom Christ has set us free, and nobody in that building has taken attendance on me for twenty years.
- Lord, You settled it in a room on a Tuesday when I was thirty-eight and nothing has come loose since. It is written that I am to stand firm and not submit again to a yoke of slavery, and I thank You, because Your Holy Spirit is keeping me from picking one back up at six twenty, and I am walking in with everybody else.
Galatians 5:1
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