The curtain stays half across.
Not for privacy, exactly. You are three floors up, or the window faces a fence, or there is nobody out there at any hour who is looking in.
It is that an open curtain is an invitation to see, and you do not want the room seen.
The wall behind the sofa. The thing you have been meaning to deal with. The general sense that a person who lives properly would not live like this.
So the curtain is at the halfway point, and it has been for a long time, and that is the actual reason there is nothing on the sill. Not the light. Not the space.
Putting something in a window is putting something in a window, and a window is a thing that gets looked at.
God hath chosen the weak things
Paul writes to a church that had no impressive people in it, and he tells them what God actually does with that.
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. (1 Corinthians 1:27, King James Version)
God hath chosen the weak things of the world.
You are living in exactly the class of thing God has a history of choosing, and no unimpressive room has ever once been outside that choosing. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says God hath chosen the weak things of the world, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman with a curtain at the halfway point.
Read what he does not say. He does not say God tolerates the weak things. He does not say God can work with them despite everything.
Chosen. Deliberately, as a preference, over the alternatives that were available.
And the reason given is not sentimental. It is to confound the mighty, which means the weak thing is chosen because of what it is rather than in spite of it, and that is a completely different arrangement from being put up with.
You were chosen in the category you are actually in, and nothing about the state of a room has ever once moved you out of it. The Spirit of God is what makes that land in a body rather than in a theory, and 1 Corinthians 1 is where the choosing is written down.
Who the curtain is keeping out
Now the practical half, and it starts with a question that has an uncomfortable answer.
Who actually looks in that window.
Be specific. Not people in general. Who, by name, has ever stood outside and looked into that room.
For most people the honest answer is nobody, ever, in years. The curtain is not keeping anybody out, because nobody was coming.
Which means the curtain is not doing what you thought it was doing. It is not protecting the room from being seen by others. It is confirming to you, several times a day, that the room is something to be hidden.
You have been keeping something half closed against a person who has never once walked past that glass. What is written in 1 Corinthians 1:27 chooses the weak thing rather than concealing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names an audience that does not exist.
And there is a cost to that which is not about other people at all.
A half closed curtain darkens the room. It reduces the light in a place where you have already decided the light is the problem. The shame and the dimness are the same object, and you have been solving one with the other.
You are able to take back the light you have been giving away, and a curtain pulled open has never once been an announcement to anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an ordinary movement possible, and 1 Corinthians 1 is the ground under it.
Put it where it can be seen
So the instruction has two parts and both are small and one of them is hard.
Open the curtain fully today. All the way. Not most of the way.
And then put one plant on the sill, in the part of the window that can be seen from outside.
That second part is the point. Not tucked at the side. In it. The part that would be visible to somebody walking past, if there were ever anybody walking past.
Because what that does, quietly, is make a statement you have not been able to make in words. That somebody lives here, and that the person who lives here put something living in the window on purpose.
You are able to make one plain statement without saying anything at all, and a plant in a window has never once been a claim about how well you are doing. 1 Corinthians 1:27 chooses the weak thing to confound the mighty, and the Holy Spirit is the one who stands with a woman opening a curtain all the way.
So here is what is going out over a woman with a curtain at the halfway point.
You are free to open the curtain, and a room you are ashamed of has never once been a room you were meant to hide in. I am not going to tell you the room is fine, and I am not going to promise you anything about what goes in the window. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who opens a curtain in a room nobody looks into.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have been darkening a room to protect it from an audience that does not exist, and the shame and the dimness have never once been two separate things. The Spirit of God is the one saying that over you now, and 1 Corinthians 1 is where the choosing stands written.
All the way open. One plant. In the visible part.
Declare this over yourself
- Curtain at the halfway point, you are not privacy and you never were. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says God hath chosen the weak things of the world, so by the Holy Spirit I open you all the way today and I put one plant where it can be seen, in the name of Jesus.
- Audience I have been hiding this room from, you have never once had a single name. The written word chooses the weak thing rather than concealing it, and by the Holy Spirit I stop darkening a room against nobody.
- Father, You did not say You tolerate the weak things or that You can work with them regardless. Your word says God hath chosen the weak things of the world, so by Your Spirit I open the curtain, and I let the light into the room I actually live in.
1 Corinthians 1:27
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
