He tried it as an exercise, sitting on the sand in the evening, and he expected it to take about four seconds.
Name one person who has wanted you in particular.
Not needed. Not relied on. Not been glad you were there when the thing needed doing.
Wanted. Specifically you, for no function.
He is fifty six and he sat there for a long time.
He is not a man without people. That is the thing that makes this hard to explain and it is why he has never tried to explain it. He has a large family and he is at the middle of it. He has been the one who carries things since he was about twenty two: the money when it was needed, the arrangements when his father died, the difficult conversation with the nephew, the truck, the ladder, the time.
He is needed by a great many people and all of it is real.
He went through them one by one on that beach and every single name came back the same way.
His sister: needs him, and would be lost without him, and has said so.
His brother in law: relies on him totally.
The nephews: he is the one they call, and there are four of them, and he has never once not answered.
His mother: needed him from the year his father died until the year she died herself, and he was there for every part of it and would do it again.
And when he asked, of each of those, would they have wanted me if I had brought nothing, he did not get an answer, and he does not think the answer is no, and that is not the point.
The point is that he does not know, and has no way of finding out, because he has never once turned up anywhere empty handed in thirty four years.
He said it out loud on the sand, to nobody, and it startled him: I could not name one.
You know the exercise. You may not have done it deliberately. But you know what it is to be surrounded by people who would say without hesitation that they need you, and to have no evidence at all about whether anybody wants you.
Under, not on call
Let me name the pit before we go to the Psalm, because if this becomes an article about how much your family loves you, it will be true and it will not touch the question, and you will go back to carrying things on Monday.
You are under it and not on call for it, and you were covered before you carried a thing for anybody. Psalm 91:4 leaves nothing in that verse for a man to hold, and it is the Holy Spirit who covers.
The pit is that you have no category for being wanted, and a man with no category for a thing cannot receive it even when it is handed to him. Everything that has ever come toward you has come in the form of a call: somebody needed something, and you went.
So God arrives, and He arrives into the only slot you have, and He becomes another one who needs something from you, and you serve Him the way you serve everybody, and the actual question, the one you sat with on the sand, never gets touched.
Here is the verse.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.Psalm 91:4
Read the position it puts a man in.
Under. That is the whole word. Under His wings, covered by His feathers, with His truth in front of you as a shield.
There is nothing in that verse for you to carry. Not one item. A man under a wing is not holding the wing up, is not on call, is not being relied upon, and is not there because the wing needed something doing.
He is there because he is being covered, and the covering is somebody else's act.
That is a position you have not occupied since you were about twenty two.
Take that on the sand, and know it is not me consoling a useful man, it is what is written. You are under it, not on call for it, and there is nothing in that verse for you to carry. Psalm 91 puts every action on His side, and it is the Holy Spirit who gets a man out from underneath his own usefulness for long enough to notice, and He is not ringing you about a job.
You are under it and not on call for it, and you were covered before you carried anything for anybody. Psalm 91:4 leaves nothing in the verse for a man to hold, and it is the Holy Spirit who covers, and He is not ringing about a job.
And here I draw the line this site always draws, in the same breath. God is neither male nor female. Numbers 23:19 says God is not a man, and He is not a woman either; He is spirit. The feathers and the wings are one of the ways Scripture describes Him with a mother's picture beside a father's, and both are His own, and it does not make the Spirit a woman and it does not make God a goddess.
He found out what they were coming in for.
You are under it and not on call for it, and you were covered before you ever carried anything for anybody. Psalm 91:4 puts every action on His side and leaves nothing in that verse for a man to hold, and it is the Holy Spirit who covers, and He is not ringing about a job.
You have not had that day. That is the whole of it, and it is not anybody's fault, and it is certainly not a failure of your family, who love you and who tell you so in the only language you have ever given them room to use, which is the language of needing.
So sit down and do nothing for a minute.
Not as a lesson and not to test anybody. Just occupy, for sixty seconds, the position the verse describes, which is under something rather than holding something.
He covers you Himself, and being under a wing is not being on call. That is Psalm 91:4 read exactly as it stands, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that reach a man who has been carrying since he was twenty two, and He is not asking you to do anything with it.
And nothing here is a lever. I am not going to tell you that because God wants you, you should therefore go and be less useful, or have a conversation with your sister, or change anything by the weekend. There is no ask at the end of this article.
The question you sat with on the sand is a real question and I have not answered it. I do not know who has wanted you in particular in fifty six years and neither do you.
What is written is that there is a place where you are covered, and the covering is not a response to anything you brought, and it was His act before you got there.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud on the shore. You are in Christ, and the authority to speak over thirty four years of carrying is delegated to you in Him; it does not depend on your being able to name anybody, and on that beach you could not. These stand on what is written in the Psalm and are carried by the Holy Spirit, not by anything you have done for anybody. What He does with the question, and when, is His to decide, and He answers in His own way and in His own timing.
- Question I could not answer on that shore, you are about who wanted me and not about whether I am covered, and I put you down in the name of Jesus. Psalm 91:4 says He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.
- Slot I put everybody in, including God, where they need something and I go, you do not get this one. It is written that a man under a wing is not holding it up, and His Spirit is the one who covers, and there is nothing in that verse for me to carry.
- Lord, You are neither male nor female, and You cover like a bird covers with her feathers. I read this verse out loud and I sit down and do nothing for one minute, and when my hands want a job I am not following them.
Psalm 91:4
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