The Hand That Got There First

The kettle is on. The coat is over the back of the chair where it always goes. The bag is on the floor by the radiator, and there is a plate to be washed from this morning.

And the glass is already poured.

That is the bit she cannot get past. Not the drinking. The pouring. She has no memory of choosing it. There is a stretch of about ninety seconds between coming through the door and standing at the counter, and somewhere inside that ninety seconds her right hand opened a cupboard, took down a particular glass, reached across, and poured, and she was not consulted about any of it.

She stands there looking at it now with her coat half off.

It is not that she thinks about it and gives in. She would almost prefer that. Giving in has a shape you can argue with. This has no shape. This is a hand arriving somewhere before she does, every evening, in the gap between the kettle and the news, with all the deliberation of a light coming on when you walk into a room.

She has tried arguing with it afterwards. That is a whole conversation she has with herself while she drinks it, and she is very good at both sides.

And then, later, when the flat is quiet, there is the other thing. Not the headache. The quieter one. The one that says: if you cannot even be the person who decides what your own hand does at half past six, then what exactly are you.

That is the sentence I want to get to. Not the glass. That sentence.

Because here is what I would say to her if I were standing in that kitchen with my coat still on. It is not true, and it is not even close to true, and the fact that it arrives every evening in her own voice does not make it a verdict on her. It makes it a habit, wearing her voice, the way the pouring is a habit wearing her hand.

That is you, is it not. Perhaps not the same drink or the same hour. But you know the feeling of watching your own hands do something you did not authorize, and then having to sit down afterwards inside a sentence about who that makes you.

Freedom is where you are standing, not where you are heading

I want to be very careful with you here, because this is the point where messages like this usually start giving instructions, and instructions are not what you need from a stranger.

So let me say two plain things first, and mean them.

The first: if you are drinking every day, stopping suddenly on your own can be genuinely dangerous to your body. That is not a spiritual observation, it is simply true, and I would rather say it than be poetic at you. Please let a doctor be part of this. If you are already in a program, or on a medication, or going to meetings, none of that is a lesser road and none of it competes with God for one second. He is not offended by help. He puts it in the world. And it is the Holy Spirit who makes that land in you rather than merely read well.

The second: if you drank last night, or an hour ago, you have not lost your place in this message. Nothing here is written for the version of you who has already managed something.

Now here is the sentence, and I want you to notice its grammar.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.Galatians 5:1

Read the first half again. Christ has set us free. Past tense, completed, done by Him, and the word for is doing something enormous: the freeing was not aimed at some future improved condition. It was aimed at freedom itself, as a place, and He has already put you in it.

And then look at the instruction that follows, because it is not the one people usually hear. It is not run. It is not climb. It is not get yourself out. It is stand firm, and standing firm is what you do somewhere you are already standing. The Holy Spirit is the one carrying that into the room you are actually in.

That changes where the whole struggle is happening.

You have been treating freedom as a destination at the far end of a very long corridor, with a great many locked doors between you and it, and every evening at half past six you have concluded that you are further away than you were. But the Word does not put freedom at the end of the corridor. It puts it under your feet. What has a hold on your hand is real, and I am not going to be sentimental about how strong it is, but it does not have the deed to the ground you are standing on. Christ does.

So when your hand gets to the cupboard before you do, that is not the news that you are still a slave. It is news about a habit, and habits are strong and stupid and they are not you. You are the one whose freedom was bought before this evening started.

And the hand. Let me say this gently, because it is the thing she could not say. Your hands are not the enemy. They are yours, and before that they are His, and a hand that has been doing something on autopilot for a long time is not a moral fact about the person it belongs to. It is a hand that has learned a route.

If tonight has gone somewhere darker than a glass, if you are frightened for yourself, say it to a person before you sleep. In the United States you can call or text 988. Anywhere else, your local crisis line or emergency number, and one human being who will stay on the phone. You are worth the call.