He Is Not Startled

The first time she told anyone, she was watching the other person's face so closely that she barely heard the reply.

That is what she remembers about it. Not what she said. Not what came back. The face. The eighth of a second before the kindness got organized, when something moved across it that the person themselves probably never knew about, and she caught it, because she had been watching for it, and she has been watching for it in every face since.

That was eleven years ago and one person. Since then she has told nobody, and she has become an extremely accurate reader of faces.

Here is what nobody sees. She goes into rooms and she scans. She can tell you within a minute who in a group would be uncomfortable, who would be curious in a way she does not want, who would go warm and careful and start using her name too often. It is not paranoia. She is largely right. It is simply a skill she developed the way you develop any skill, by practicing it every day for eleven years without a break.

And a skill like that does something to a person's picture of God.

Because you cannot spend eleven years reading faces for the flinch without eventually putting a face on Him too. Nobody does it deliberately. But she prays now the way you talk to somebody whose reaction you are managing: general, careful, leaving out the middle. She has never once in eleven years brought Him the actual thing, and if you asked her why not, she would give you a reason about reverence, and the real reason is that she is not willing to see it move across that face as well.

She is bracing for an eighth of a second from a God who does not have one.

That is you, watching the face.

You've been reading rooms for years and you're very good at it. And somewhere in that skill, the God who made you got quietly folded in with everybody else whose reaction has to be managed, and now the one place where you could put it down is the place you approach most carefully of all.

The High Priest in this verse cannot be shocked

Hebrews is written to people who had a very developed sense of who could be approached and how. Watch what it does with the face.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.Hebrews 4:15-16

Was in all points tempted like as we are. That is the sentence that removes the flinch. Not because He excuses anything, and the verse does not soften it. Because a flinch is what happens when something arrives that a person has no category for, and there is no category He does not have.

You are bringing this to Someone who has already been the whole way into what it is like to be you, and nothing you carry is going to be new information on that throne, and I am not making that up to comfort you: Hebrews 4:15 says in all points, in writing, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than my confidence who can make it safe enough for a woman who reads faces.

And now look at the word the passage reaches for next, because after a sentence like that you would expect it to say carefully. It says the opposite. Come boldly. In the Greek it is a word about frankness of speech: saying the thing outright, without the careful management, without leaving the middle out.

That word was not chosen for people who have nothing to bring. It was chosen precisely for people who have something, because nobody needs to be told to come boldly when their hands are empty.

You have been invited to be blunt with God, and the carefulness you have practiced for eleven years is not the reverence you thought it was, which is written in Hebrews 4:16 rather than being my read on your prayer life, with the Spirit of God able to loosen a habit that has become second nature.

Here is what changes when there is no flinch to watch for. All that attention comes back to you. You have no idea how much of your capacity has been spent on the scan, because you have not had a room without it in over a decade.

And notice what the verse says you obtain when you come boldly. Mercy, and grace to help in time of need. Not a verdict. Not a review. Help, which is the word for what a person actually needs at that moment.

This is yours right now, at full volume, with the middle left in, because Scripture calls it a throne of grace and puts the word boldly in front of the coming, and the Holy Spirit is the one carrying that to somebody who has been careful for eleven years.