The Books I Bought To Be Somebody

You bought most of those in a shop, in daylight, where people could see you doing it.

That is not a small detail and I do not think you have looked at it directly. There is a difference between the books on that shelf and the things you actually reach for at eleven at night, and the difference is not quality. It is that one set was chosen in public.

So the shelf is not a record of your appetite. It is a record of a man in a shop, aware of the room, selecting the version of himself he would like on display, one book at a time over about six years.

And you have not read them. Twenty three of them, serious, heavy, and every one of them selected by a man who was slightly performing.

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 man ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book, and mostly it adds another performance to the shelf.

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 audience, because there was one, and it has been choosing your reading for six years.

The books are not the problem. The room they were chosen in is.

The Lord looketh on the heart

There is a sentence in 1 Samuel 16 spoken while a prophet is standing in a room full of impressive candidates, and it dismisses the whole room.

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7, King James Version)

Notice who is being corrected.

Samuel is a prophet, and he is making an assessment based on how a man looks, and he is doing it sincerely. This is not a story about a vain man being caught out. It is about somebody serious getting the criteria wrong by default, because appearance is the criteria a person uses unless something interrupts.

And then the sentence: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Two different instruments, looking at two different things, and only one of them is reading the actual situation.

You are looked at by the one who does not read appearance, and twenty three impressive books have never once told Him anything about you. 1 Samuel 16:7 corrects a prophet for using the outward criteria and names the heart as what God is reading instead, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over a shelf chosen in daylight.

There is one more thing in that chapter worth having, and it is what happens next.

The one who gets chosen is out with the sheep. He is not in the room. He was not brought in to be looked at, and he had nothing on display when the decision was made.

You have already been assessed with nothing on display, and a shelf arranged for a room has never once been what God was reading. It is written for the LORD seeth not as man seeth, the one chosen was not even present to be looked at, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The audience picked the books, and it cannot read them

Here is the mechanism, and it is exact.

The man who chose those books is not the man who has to read them.

In the shop there was an audience, real or assumed, and the audience has certain tastes. It respects difficulty. It is impressed by a particular kind of spine. And under that gaze a version of you selected accordingly, and that version was not lying, exactly, he was aiming.

Then at eleven at night there is no audience. There is a tired man in a chair with no one watching, and his actual appetite is completely different, and the books on the shelf were not chosen for him.

So nothing gets read. Not from laziness. The supply was built for a different customer.

You are stocked for a man who only exists in shops, and twenty three unread books have never once been a failure of appetite. 1 Samuel 16:7 puts the assessing instrument on the heart rather than the outward appearance, and the Holy Spirit is present with a man whose shelf was chosen under a gaze.

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

Because the shelf is a display, reading from it feels like it should be a step up. Opening one is meant to be the moment the performance becomes true. Which loads every one of those twenty three books with a task far bigger than reading, and nobody at eleven at night takes on a task that size.

Whereas the books you actually want are not on that shelf and were never bought, because buying those in daylight would not have said the right thing to the room.

You have permission to be stocked for the man in the chair, and the easy thing you actually want has never once been beneath you. The written word has God choosing somebody who was not even in the room to be looked at, and His Spirit is the one who dismisses an audience a man has been shopping for.

The one you would not have bought if anybody was watching

So here is the assignment, and the qualifier is the whole of it.

Take one off the pile tonight that you would not have bought if anybody had been watching, and read ten pages.

There is at least one. Maybe two. Something light that got in there by accident, or was a gift, or that you bought late at night on a device where the room could not see you. That is the one.

If there is genuinely not one on the shelf, then the assignment is to go and get one, in whatever way nobody sees, and it does not matter at all what it is.

You are read by the one who does not read appearance, and a shelf arranged for an aisle has never once told Him anything. The Spirit of God is present in that chair, and it is written that man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Ten pages. Then stop.

Here is why that one and not a serious one.

The whole shelf was selected by an audience, so reading off it confirms the audience's authority. Reading the one book the audience would not have approved is what breaks it, and it breaks it in about ten minutes rather than in a resolution.

And ten pages, because the point is not to consume the light thing. The point is to have one evening of reading where nobody chose the book but you.

You are able to read the one thing the room would not have picked, and a book nobody would be impressed by has never once been a smaller book to read. 1 Samuel 16:7 says the LORD looketh on the heart, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a man reading something light in a chair with nobody watching.

You may notice, ten pages in, that you are enjoying it more than you have enjoyed reading in six years. Do not put that down to the book being easy. Put it down to it being yours.

You have a shelf that can be stocked for the man who actually reads, and six years of shopping for a room have never once told anybody who you are. It is written man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart, the one chosen was out with the sheep and not on display, and the Spirit of God is choosing here.