I Called It Cowardice

You stood in front of the shelf on Sunday and reached past three new ones for the one you have read four times, and you called yourself a coward about it.

Not out loud. In the small internal register where a person says the harshest things they say all week. Cowardice. That was the word, and it has been the word for about a year, every time your hand goes to the known one.

And it is not a mild word. It is a word about character, and you would not use it about anybody else in your life over a paperback, and you use it about yourself roughly twice a month.

Two things are not coming here, and you have met them both.

Nobody is handing you a list. Not a title, not an author, not a genre, and no shelf of what anybody ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book.

And nobody is saying one word about your phone. You know about the phone. Everybody knows. Being told again by a stranger returns nothing at all.

What I want to look at is the word, because it names a thing that has been dealt with, and it has no business being used about you in any case.

Not the spirit of fear

There is a sentence in 2 Timothy 1 that states what has and has not been given, and it is very specific about the has not.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7, King James Version)

Read the first half as a flat statement of fact.

God hath not given us the spirit of fear. That is not an encouragement to be braver. It is a statement about what was issued, and the spirit of fear is named as a thing that did not come from Him and is therefore not part of the equipment.

And then the three that were given. Power, love, and a sound mind. That last one is the interesting one for a woman standing in front of a shelf, because a sound mind is a mind that assesses things accurately, and the word cowardice about a reread is not an accurate assessment of anything.

You have not been given the spirit of fear, and reaching for a known book has never once been cowardice in anybody. 2 Timothy 1:7 states flatly what was not given and names a sound mind among the three that were, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over a shelf on a Sunday.

There is one more thing worth having about the verse.

It is written to Timothy, who was by all accounts a timid man, and Paul does not tell him to stop being timid. He tells him what he was given, which is a different intervention entirely: not a rebuke about a temperament, a statement about equipment.

You have equipment that was issued rather than a temperament to be scolded, and being told what you have has never once been the same thing as being told off. It is written but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, the sentence hands over an inventory rather than a correction, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The word is wildly out of proportion

Here is the mechanism, and it is worth seeing plainly because the word is doing real damage.

Cowardice describes a failure to face something that must be faced.

That is what the word means. It has a job. It applies where there is danger, or duty, or a person who needed defending, and there is a real thing that word names and it is a serious thing.

Now hold it against what happened on Sunday. A woman stood in front of a shelf in a warm room and took down a book she loves instead of a book she does not know. There was no danger, no duty, and nobody needed defending. The word has nothing at all to attach to.

So it is not merely harsh. It is inaccurate, in the plainest sense, and a sound mind would throw it out on the first reading.

You are using a word with nothing to attach to, and choosing a known book has never once involved anything that had to be faced. 2 Timothy 1:7 names the sound mind as part of what was given, and the Holy Spirit is present with a woman who has been calling herself a coward twice a month over a paperback.

And there is a second layer, and it explains where the word came from.

Somewhere in you, new is filed as growth and known is filed as retreat, and that filing came from a general idea about bettering oneself that has attached itself to reading and does not belong there.

Reading is not a ladder. A known book is not a lower rung. And your hand going to the one you love is not a flinch, it is a preference, and preferences are what taste is made of.

You have a preference and not a flinch, and a known book has never once been a lower rung than a new one. The written word hands over power and love and a sound mind as the equipment and never once corrects a temperament, and His Spirit is the one who throws out a word that does not apply.

Ten pages of the one you already know

So here is the assignment, and there is a second half to it.

Read ten pages of a book you already know.

The one you reached for on Sunday. The four times one. Not one of the three new ones to prove something, and not the known one framed as an earned treat.

Ten pages of it, chosen deliberately, out loud if nobody is about.

You have not been given the spirit of fear, and a hand going to the book you love has never once been cowardice in anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one at that shelf with you, and 2 Timothy 1:7 states flatly what was not given and lists power and love and a sound mind as what was.

And here is the second half. When the word arrives, and it will, say back to it the one thing that is actually true: nothing here needed facing.

Here is why that sentence.

You cannot argue a word like that out with reasons; it does not run on reasons. What it cannot survive is a plain description of the situation, and the situation is a woman in a warm room choosing a book she loves.

You are able to choose the known one and refuse the word, and one sentence of plain description has never once been too small to unseat a slander. 2 Timothy 1:7 says for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a woman saying a true sentence back to a word she has used for a year.

And read the new ones when you want to, which will not be tonight and may be next month. Nothing about tonight is a decision about the other three.

You have power and love and a sound mind on the inventory, and fear has never once been on the list of what God issued you. It is written but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, the verse states what was not given and then lists what was, and the Spirit of God is saying it over that shelf today.