One Page While The Rice Cooks

There are twenty minutes between putting the rice on and calling everybody, and nothing has ever been put in them.

They are not free minutes exactly. You are in the kitchen, things need turning, somebody comes in and asks a question and goes out again, and the radio is on. But there is no task in those twenty minutes that requires all of you, and there has not been for years.

And you have wanted to read out loud to your family for about two years. You have imagined it a specific way: everybody sitting, the room quiet, attention on the page. And that room has never existed in your house and it is not going to, because your house has nine people through it in an evening and the volume is what it is.

So the wanting has sat there for two years with no version of itself available.

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 picture, because the picture is what has been unavailable and the thing itself never was.

Scripture has the good things happening from house to house, in the middle of the traffic, and it says so cheerfully.

From house to house with gladness

There is a description at the end of Acts 2 of how a group of people actually lived, and the setting in it is domestic and busy.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. (Acts 2:46, King James Version)

Read where the good thing is located.

From house to house. Not only in the temple, which gets its own clause. The bread breaking happens in kitchens, in ordinary rooms, moving between them, in the middle of whatever a household is doing at that hour.

And notice the two words attached to it. Gladness and singleness of heart. Those are not the words a person uses about a solemn arrangement. That is a description of good noise.

You are looking at the good thing happening in a busy house, and a loud kitchen has never once been the wrong room for it. Acts 2:46 puts the breaking of bread from house to house with gladness rather than only in the quiet place, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over twenty minutes and a pot of rice.

There is one more word in that verse and it is the one that decides the frequency.

Daily. Continuing daily. Whatever else was going on, this was a daily thing, and daily things cannot require special conditions, because special conditions do not arrive daily anywhere.

You have something built for daily and not for occasions, and a thing that happens every day has never once been able to require a quiet room. It is written and they, continuing daily with one accord, the daily rhythm rules out any arrangement needing special conditions, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The picture required a house you do not have

Here is the mechanism, and it is entirely about the staging.

The version in your head has a stage direction in it: everybody seated, room quiet, attention on the reader.

That staging belongs to a different household. Yours has nine people through it in an evening, a radio, a stove, and somebody arriving late for food, and none of that is a fault. It is a full house and full houses are loud.

So the wanting has been paired with an arrangement that requires a house you do not have, and a want with an impossible staging attached produces nothing at all, for two years, silently.

You are holding a want with an impossible staging on it, and a full house has never once been the reason a page did not get read. Acts 2:46 has the breaking of bread happen from house to house with gladness in the middle of ordinary life, and the Holy Spirit is present with a woman who has wanted this for two years.

And there is a second layer, and it is the one that changes the whole thing.

Nobody has to be listening. That is the part the picture got wrong most badly. In your kitchen at that hour, one voice reading a page out loud does not need an audience turned toward it. It is one more thing in the room, alongside the radio and the pot and the conversation, and it will be half heard by four people and fully heard by one.

Half heard is not failed. Half heard is how most of the good things in a full house land.

You have permission to be half heard, and a page read over a stove has never once needed anybody's full attention to have happened. The written word puts gladness and singleness of heart on a domestic scene rather than on a silent one, and His Spirit is the one who takes a stage direction off a good thing.

One page out loud tonight

So here is the assignment, and the twenty minutes are the whole of it.

Read one page out loud to somebody in your house tonight.

In the kitchen, while the rice cooks. Standing up, book in one hand, stirring with the other if that is what is happening. Out loud, at a volume that competes with the radio, to whoever is in the room.

One page. Then put it down and call everybody.

You are standing in exactly the room the verse describes, and a loud kitchen has never once disqualified a page. The Holy Spirit is the one at that stove with you, and Acts 2:46 puts the breaking of bread from house to house with gladness rather than in a silent room.

Here is why the kitchen and not the sitting room.

The sitting room requires an arrangement. The kitchen requires nothing at all: the standing there is already happening, the twenty minutes are already there, and nobody has to be gathered. Which means it can happen tonight rather than on the evening when everybody is available, and that evening is not coming.

And do not ask for quiet. Do not turn the radio off. Read it over the top of everything, because that is the room the verse is describing.

You are able to read one page over a stove and a radio, and a page half heard by four people has never once been a page that did not land. Acts 2:46 says breaking bread from house to house, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a woman reading out loud with a spoon in her other hand.

Expect somebody to say what are you doing. Tell them, and carry on, and read the rest of the page.

You have a house that is exactly the setting Scripture describes, and nine people through a kitchen have never once been an obstacle to a good thing. It is written did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, the words attached are gladness and singleness rather than silence, and the Spirit of God is saying it in that kitchen tonight.