By the time Simone has parked, the evening is already over.
Not really. Really it has not started. The car is at the far end of the lot and there are lights on in the hall and she can hear the band doing that thing bands do where they play four bars of something and stop. Her friend is getting married inside. She has known her since they were fifteen.
But in Simone's head the whole evening has already run once, at speed, and the results are in.
It runs like a route. There will be something handed round at the door, and that one is free and does not count as a decision, so that is one. Dinner is at seven and there will be something on the table and she will not touch it until the toasts because that looks better, so nothing until eight, and then two during the speeches because everybody has two during the speeches. That is three. There is a gap between the speeches and the dancing which is the difficult part, because everybody stands up and mills about, and that gap is where it goes wrong, so she will get one at the start of the gap and hold it a long time. Four.
Then the bar after nine, which she is not going to think about yet.
She has done this in a car outside a wedding, a funeral, a christening, a leaving do, a Sunday lunch and a school concert. She is very good at it. It takes about ninety seconds and it is completely silent and nobody in nine years has known she is doing it.
That is the part that got her tonight, sitting there with the engine off. Not the number. The fact that she cannot remember the last time she walked into a room without doing the sum first.
I have not been to an evening in nine years. I have been to the plan.
And here is where I stop talking about Simone, because you run your own route, and you ran it this week, and it took you about ninety seconds.
Let me name what has actually been taken, because it is not your health and it is not your dignity, and if we aim at the wrong thing we will miss. What has been taken is your presence. You have been at everything and you have attended nothing.
You are not under its government
Let me put the strong thing down first, because you are sitting in a car and you have about four minutes.
You are not ruled by this. It does not govern you, it is not your authority, and it has no lawful claim on the evening in front of you, and that is true right now with the plan already made and the sum already done.
I would not dare say that on my own. It is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one carrying it into a parking lot:
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.Romans 6:14
Take the word dominion seriously, because it is a word about government and not about feelings. The verse does not promise that you will stop noticing. It says the thing does not rule. It has no jurisdiction. And then it tells you why, which is the part people skip: not because you are strong, and not because you are trying hard, but because of where you are standing, which is under grace. And it is the Holy Spirit who makes that land in you rather than merely read well.
So your freedom is a matter of jurisdiction rather than willpower, and Scripture is where that stands rather than my own confidence, and God's Spirit is the one who makes it operative in a car with the engine off.
What the route is costing you
Now let us be precise about the damage, because vague talk here changes nobody.
You have not been at your friend's wedding. You will be in the room. You will hug her and you will mean it and you will cry at the right part, and a portion of you, a real portion, the size of which you have never measured, will be running the route in the background the whole time.
Every time. For nine years. At the funeral, at the concert, at the christening.
That portion is not owed to this. It belongs to you and it was given to you for exactly the room you are about to walk into. There is no part of you that God has allocated to background arithmetic, and that is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it a thing you can act on rather than a thing you regret.
And now the serious practical half, which I will say as carefully as I mean it. If you have been drinking daily, please do not simply stop by yourself. Coming off alcohol without medical supervision can be dangerous, and that is not a reason to keep going, it is the reason to see a doctor this week and say out loud how much and how often, so that whatever happens next happens safely. And keep every other real help you have got, the meeting, the counselor, the medicine, the person who texts you. None of it competes with what God is doing in you and none of it is small faith. It is His kindness arriving with a face and a phone number.
Here is the turn, and it is not a rule and it is not a plan for tonight's bar.
You are not being asked to walk in unarmed and hope. You are being told who has jurisdiction here, and once that is settled, the route stops being a survival strategy and becomes what it always was, which is a habit with no authority behind it.
Freedom is already yours, in the car, before the door. It is not a prize for an evening well handled and it is not issued at the end of a dry stretch, because Christ paid for it in full and God does not take back what His Son paid for. That is what the written word says over you, and the Holy Spirit is the one pressing it into a parking lot at ten to six.
And the arithmetic has no right to run in the background of your friend's wedding. It is not preparation and it is not prudence, because prudence does not need to be hidden for nine years. Right now, as you read this, you are not reaching for something new. You are agreeing out loud with something already settled.
So the next thing is not a vow about tonight. It is a sentence said out loud in a car, and one person told in daylight this week, and then a door.
And say this plainly with me, because it matters more than anything else on this page. If you have been drinking daily, do not simply stop on your own: coming off alcohol without medical supervision can be genuinely dangerous, and a doctor this week is the way through. And if you have drunk more than you meant to and you are unwell, or the thought has turned toward not being here at all, get medical help now and tell one person today. In the United States you can call or text 988 at any hour. Wherever you are there is a local line and there are people awake right now.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud where you are, glass pushed away. The right to speak them is not produced by a good evening and it is not withdrawn after a bad one: it is yours in Christ, given to you, and exercised in His Name. Speak them, leave the glass where it is, and leave the whole of what follows with Him, because the outcome is His. The Holy Spirit is the one carrying that into the room you are actually in.
- Route I run in the car park that maps every occasion by what will be poured there, you have no jurisdiction and you never held any. Scripture says sin shall not have dominion over me because I am under grace, and dominion is a word about government, so you are not the government here.
- Ninety seconds of silent arithmetic, get out of my head now, in the name of Jesus. You have taken nine years of weddings and funerals and left me holding the plan instead of the evening, and my hands are open and the glass is down.
- God, You are in this car with the engine off and You have not once looked away from me. Your word says I am under grace and not under law, so my hands are my own now, and I am walking in to be at this wedding instead of at the plan.
Romans 6:14
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