I Want One And I Am Afraid Of What It Means

You want one.

Not vaguely. You have thought about where it would go. You have noticed them in other people's kitchens and then thought about your own counter afterward, on the drive home.

And you have not gotten one.

Because somewhere between wanting it and picking one up there is a checkpoint, and at that checkpoint a question gets asked that has nothing to do with plants.

The question is: what does it say about you that you want this.

And the answers your own mind supplies are not kind ones. That you are trying to be somebody you are not. That you are performing a settled life you do not have. That when it dies, everybody will have seen you try.

So the wanting gets put down, quietly, somewhere between the shelf and the door.

Perfect love casteth out fear

John writes a sentence in his first letter that names the actual mechanism, and the last clause is the one that matters here.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18, King James Version)

Because fear hath torment.

You are being told by the written word that the torment is the fear itself, and no small wanting of yours has ever once been what brought it. 1 John 4:18 says fear hath torment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman putting a plant back on a shelf.

Look at the diagnosis in that verse. It does not say fear is disobedient. It does not say fear is a failure of nerve.

It says fear carries torment with it. That is a description of what the fear costs, and the cost is being paid in a kitchen that has never once had a plant in it.

And then the answer offered is not courage. Nobody is told to be braver. The thing that puts fear out is love, arriving from outside, and the fear leaves because there is no longer room for it rather than because the afraid person overpowered it.

You were never asked to defeat this by nerve, and the going of fear has never once depended on you finding more of it. The Spirit of God is what carries that in, and 1 John 4 is where the casting out is written down.

What the checkpoint is actually for

Now the practical half, and it is about the question at the door.

That checkpoint is not really about a plant. You can tell, because it does not run when you buy bread.

It runs on things that could be seen as aspiration. A plant, a new haircut, a good coat, a class somebody suggested. Anything that might look like a woman making a claim about her life.

And the fear underneath is specific and worth naming plainly. It is not the fear of the plant dying. It is the fear of having been seen wanting something and then not managing it.

You have been guarding against being witnessed wanting something, and no desire of yours has ever once been the thing that had to be justified first. What is written in 1 John 4:18 puts the torment in the fear rather than in the wanting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the checkpoint down.

And here is the thing about that fear that makes it so expensive. It cannot be satisfied.

If you get the plant and it does well, the checkpoint does not close. It moves on to the next thing. If you never get it, the checkpoint also does not close, because the fear was never about the outcome and there is nothing for it to be resolved by.

So the only thing that ever actually ends it is walking through it once, on something small, and discovering that the ground holds.

You are able to walk through this on something the size of a pot, and a small crossing has never once counted for less than a large one. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a first crossing survivable, and 1 John 4 is the ground under it.

Say it out loud

So here is the assignment, and there is one sentence in it that is the whole of it.

Get one this week. And when you set it down, say out loud: I wanted this.

Three words, and then nothing. Do not add and we will see. Do not add I know, it is silly. Do not add I will probably kill it, which is the sentence most likely to arrive, and which is the checkpoint speaking through your own mouth.

Just: I wanted this. And then put the kettle on.

That sentence does something no amount of thinking about it will do. It makes the wanting a thing you said rather than a thing you were caught at, and a want spoken plainly by the person who has it stops being a vulnerability in about the time it takes to say it.

You are able to speak a desire out loud without defending it, and three plain words have never once needed a clause on the end to be safe. 1 John 4:18 says perfect love casteth out fear, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an undefended sentence possible in an empty kitchen.