Neither Height Nor Depth Nor A Bad Week

He can tell you, without hesitating, what sort of day it was with God on Tuesday.

Tuesday was a good day. He got through the thing that had been sitting there for a fortnight, he did it properly, and by four o'clock he had that particular feeling, and he prayed on the drive home easily, the way you talk to somebody you are pleased to see.

Wednesday he lost most of the morning to something stupid, then made a mess of a job he has done a hundred times, and left an hour late having achieved approximately nothing.

He did not pray on the drive home on Wednesday.

Not out of anger. It was more like not ringing somebody when you have nothing to report. A quiet sense that today he was not really in a position to, and that the conversation would be better tomorrow when there was something to bring.

He would tell you that God's love is unconditional. He teaches that, actually. He said it to a young lad in his own workshop about a month ago and he meant every word.

And on Wednesday he did not pray on the drive home, because of a job he made a mess of.

You may have your own Tuesday and your own Wednesday. A doctrine you would defend to anybody, and a driving habit that says something completely different.

The list, and what is missing from it

Here is a list, and the whole force of it is what is on it and what is not.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:38-39

Read what he includes. Death. Life. Angels. Ruling powers. Present things. Future things. The highest place there is and the lowest. And then, in case anybody thought of a category he had missed, any other creature.

That last phrase is doing something deliberate. He is closing the list. He has thought about what somebody might raise, and he shuts the door on the whole class of things.

And notice what he did not think it was necessary to include, because it was never in the running: a bad Wednesday. A morning lost to something stupid. A job you have done a hundred times and made a mess of.

You are inside a love that has an exhaustive list of what cannot reach it, and your Wednesday is not on it. Romans 8:38 shuts the door on every category and then closes it again with any other creature, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a list that comprehensive and puts an ordinary bad day inside it.

Now let me say what I think is actually happening on the drive home, because it is not unbelief.

You are treating God like a decent person who is fond of you, and decent people who are fond of you do respond slightly differently depending on how things are going. That is not a wicked model. It is a human one, borrowed from every good relationship you have.

But He is not a decent person who is fond of you. He is your Father, and the disposition described in that chapter does not have a Wednesday setting.

You are not going to catch Him in a different mood, because there is not one for Him to be in. The written word gives an exhaustive list of what cannot separate and closes it deliberately, and the Holy Spirit is not the one who suggested that today was not a good day to ring.

And I am not going to tell you that the work does not matter or that a wasted Wednesday is fine. It is annoying, it cost you a day, and you would rather have done better. That is all true and it is not the same subject.

The honest half: you will very likely not pray on the drive home after the next bad Wednesday either. This is a habit rather than a decision, and habits take a while.

But you can do it tonight, on yesterday, out loud, in the yard with the doors open.