I Saw It In Their Cupboard Unused

You were looking for a glass.

That is the part that has stayed with you. There was no searching. You opened a cupboard in somebody else's kitchen because you had been asked to get something, and it was on the second shelf, at the back, behind two things.

And you stood there for about four seconds and then took the glass and shut the door.

You have never mentioned it.

Now I want to look at what happened in you in those four seconds, because I think a whole conclusion arrived and got filed before you had left the room.

The conclusion was: so that is the answer.

Not the answer about whether they liked it. The answer about the thing itself. About whether it was any good, and behind that, about whether the four evenings had produced something worth producing, and behind that, whether a man of your age making things in a garage is doing anything real.

That is a great deal of weight for a cupboard to carry.

And I want to be honest with you rather than reassuring. It might mean they did not like it. It might. That is a real possibility and I am not going to talk you out of it.

But look at everything else it might mean, all of which is at least as likely as the one you chose.

It might mean their kitchen is small. It might mean the thing is used at Christmas. It might mean somebody tidied and it never came back out. It might mean it is precious and the second shelf is where the precious things go.

You picked one out of five. And you picked the worst one, instantly, in four seconds, and you have not questioned it since.

As every man hath received the gift

Peter writes a line about gifts that has a direction in it, and the direction is what settles this.

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (1 Peter 4:10, King James Version)

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another.

Received, then minister. Two movements, and the whole of it is about passing something on.

And notice what is not in the sentence. There is nothing about what happens to the thing afterward. No word about whether it is used, valued, displayed or put on a shelf behind two other things.

The instruction ends at the giving.

You are inside an instruction that ends where the gift leaves your hands, and 1 Peter 4:10 says nothing at all about what becomes of it afterward. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a line about stewardship and lays it down on a man standing in front of an open cupboard.

And notice the word steward. A steward handles what belongs to somebody else. What he is answerable for is the handling, not the outcome, because the outcome was never his.

You have been made a steward rather than an owner, and it is already settled in the written word that a steward is answerable for the passing on. His Spirit is the one who says minister the same one to another over a man who has been reading a verdict off a shelf.

Four seconds is not evidence

Now let me press on that reading, because it came from a careful man and it was not careful.

Four seconds. One data point. A cupboard in somebody else's house, in a room whose workings are unknown, about an object that was never asked about.

If somebody brought that in as evidence about anything else, a careful man would call it thin.

You were never handed evidence, and 1 Peter 4:10 ends its instruction at the ministering and says nothing about the outcome. The Holy Spirit is the one who refuses to read a verdict off a shelf in somebody else's kitchen.

And it was accepted instantly not because it was strong. It was accepted because it confirmed something already waiting to be confirmed. There has been a half expectation of finding out that the whole thing is not real, and a cupboard on a Tuesday finally offered a way to know.

That is not an answer arriving. That is a suspicion finding a foothold.

And this: where an object ends up is not a measure of it, and it is certainly not a measure of you. Objects end up wherever the people who own them put them, and people are not thinking about it.

You were never given evidence, and heaven has never once let a cupboard settle the worth of a work of hands. 1 Peter 4:10 ends the instruction at the ministering, and the Spirit of God is the one who refuses to read a verdict off a shelf.

And do not go and ask them. Do not find a way to bring it up and see what they say. That would put them in an impossible position and you would not believe the answer anyway.

You have permission to leave it unknown, and this is yours: the stewarding is of the giving and never of the reception. It is written in 1 Peter 4:10 that we are stewards of the manifold grace of God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who ends a man's responsibility where Scripture ends it.

Give one more and read nothing

So here is the ask, and there are two halves.

This week, make something small in twenty minutes and give it to somebody.

Same as before. Not to them necessarily, and not as a test. Just another one, going out, the way they used to.

You have a stewardship that finishes at the handing over, and 1 Peter 4:10 ends its own sentence in exactly that place. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man stop where Scripture stopped instead of following an object into somebody's kitchen.

And the second half. Whatever you see or hear afterward, read nothing off it.

If it is on a shelf, that is where it is. If it is in a cupboard, that is where it is. If they mention it, good, and if they never do, that is the ordinary condition of almost every gift ever given.

You will want to read something. That is the habit and it is four seconds long and it will arrive again. Notice it and let it go past.

You are covered while an object goes out and nothing comes back to tell you anything, and 1 Peter 4:10 is the ground under that. The written word ends the instruction at the ministering and stays entirely silent about the outcome, and the Spirit of God is present in a garage where a man is making one more.