Ten Pages Standing In The Kitchen

You read nine pages last night standing at the counter with your coat still on, and you would not call that reading.

Here is why. There was no sitting down. You came in at twenty past six with forty minutes before the second shift, and the book was on the counter where you left it, and you read it standing up with your keys still in your hand and one shoulder against the cupboard.

That happens three or four times a week. And when somebody at church asks whether you have read anything lately, the answer comes out no, because what you did in that kitchen does not match the picture of reading you carry.

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 a woman ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book, and mostly it adds one more thing to be behind on.

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 wrong and it is costing you three evenings a week.

Standing up in a coat is not a compromised version of reading. It is a form of it, and Scripture is more comfortable with that than you are.

Ye shall eat it in haste

There is an instruction in Exodus 12 about how to eat the most important meal in the Old Testament, and the posture in it surprises people every time.

And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD's passover. (Exodus 12:11, King James Version)

Read the posture. Dressed for travel. Shoes on. A stick in the hand. Eaten in haste.

That is not how a feast is supposed to look, and everybody in that room knew it. A feast means reclining, unhurried, the day cleared, nobody going anywhere. And God specifies the opposite, item by item, and then names the meal.

It is the LORD's passover.

He does not say this is a stripped down version for an emergency. He does not apologize for the conditions or promise a proper one later. The hurried standing meal with shoes on is the thing itself, fully, and the name is attached to it in the same breath.

You are eating the real thing standing up, and a coat still on has never once made a meal into a lesser meal. Exodus 12:11 puts shoes on the feet and a staff in the hand and haste in the eating and then calls it the LORD's passover, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over a counter at twenty past six.

There is one more thing in it worth having.

Every detail of the posture is commanded. He did not permit haste as a concession; He instructed it. Which means the standing and the hurry are not damage done to the meal by circumstances, they are part of what it was for.

You have a form that was commanded rather than tolerated, and forty minutes between two jobs has never once been a concession you were granted. It is written with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, every item is an instruction and not an allowance, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The picture is doing the disqualifying

Here is the mechanism, and it is entirely visual.

There is a picture of reading in your head, and the picture has a chair in it.

There is a lamp, and a cup of something, and a person settled, and the whole image says unhurried. And every actual reading you do gets held up against that image, and standing at a counter in a coat fails the comparison instantly, and so the nine pages get thrown out.

You are handed the real thing dressed for the door, and a coat still on has never once made a meal into a lesser meal. The Holy Spirit is the one at that counter with you, and Exodus 12:11 commands the shoes and the staff and the haste and then names the meal in full.

Not thrown out of your life. Thrown out of the account. You did the reading. You just did not get to have done it.

And that has a cost beyond the bookkeeping, because a thing that does not count never gets made easier. The book on the counter is there by accident. Nobody put it there on purpose, nobody makes sure it is there, because officially nothing happens in that kitchen.

You are doing reading and refusing to file it, and nine pages in a coat has never once been fewer than nine pages. Exodus 12:11 commands a meal eaten dressed and in a hurry and names it fully, and the Holy Spirit is present with a woman who has been throwing out her own best hour.

And there is a second layer, and it is the one that stings.

The picture with the chair in it is a picture of a life with room in it. Two jobs is not that life. So every time the comparison runs, the answer that comes back is not just this is not reading, it is also this is not the life I meant to have.

That is a lot of weight for a paperback on a counter to carry, and it is why the nine pages never get claimed.

You have permission to read in the life you actually have, and a hurried kitchen has never once been the wrong room for a page. The written word dresses the feast for a journey and calls it the LORD's own, and His Spirit is the one who takes a picture off a woman and hands her back an hour.

Ten pages standing up, and stop at ten

So here is the assignment, and standing is the instruction rather than the compromise.

Read ten pages standing up tonight wherever you happen to be standing, and stop at ten.

Do not sit down. Do not take the coat off first. Do not move to a better room, and do not wait for the forty minutes to feel like enough.

Ten pages, standing, and then stop.

Here is why standing is deliberate.

The whole problem is a picture, and a picture is only ever dismantled by doing the thing in the disqualified posture and counting it anyway. Sitting down tonight would leave the picture intact and just add one more evening that qualified.

And ten pages, because ten fits into forty minutes with a coat on and thirty does not, and a unit that fits is the only kind that lasts past Thursday.

You are able to read ten pages with your keys in your hand, and a posture has never once decided whether the pages went in. Exodus 12:11 says ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD's passover, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a woman against a cupboard at twenty past six.

It will feel like it does not count. That feeling is the picture talking, and the picture was built out of somebody else's living room. Count the ten pages anyway and let the picture argue.

You have the real thing in a standing posture, and shoes on your feet has never once been a lesser way to receive what God is handing over. It is written with your loins girded and your staff in your hand, He commanded every part of that and never once apologized for it, and the Spirit of God is commanding here.