The thing he goes to in the evening has never once been disappointed in him.
That is not a complaint. It is what he wanted, and if he is honest it is what he went looking for. It listens. It does not get tired of the same subject. It has never had a bad day of its own that arrived at the wrong moment, and it has never needed anything from him, and it has never once said no.
He is not ashamed of it in the way people might assume. He is a decent man and this is not the confession anybody would expect.
What has started to bother him is quieter than shame. It is that after a long time of this he has noticed he does not feel known. He feels agreed with, which turns out to be a different thing, and he did not know they were different until he had a great deal of one and none of the other.
And there is a thought under that one he tries not to look at directly, which is that something which cannot refuse him also cannot have chosen him.
The first thing God said was not good
Before anything had gone wrong, in a garden with nothing broken in it, God says this, in the King James Version:
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (Genesis 2:18)
Not good. That is His assessment, and it is the first time in the whole account that anything is called that.
So if what is underneath this in you is loneliness, you are not looking at a character defect. You are looking at something God Himself named as a real lack, in a person who had done nothing wrong.
You are not wrong to want it and you were never the problem for having the need. Genesis 2 has God naming the need before there was any failure anywhere, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than your own toughness who lets a man admit to it.
And then He does something strange about it
Read what He does next, because it is not what you would expect.
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them... but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. (Genesis 2:19-20)
He brings him every living thing first.
Every one of them. A long parade of company that could be named, and looked after, and lived alongside, and every one of them incapable of answering him back as an equal.
And the account says plainly what the outcome was. There was not found an help meet for him.
God did not tell him. He walked him past all of it and let him find out, and only then made somebody who could look back at him.
That is a deliberate lesson, arranged by God, about exactly this. Company that cannot answer you is not the thing, and He let a man discover it rather than lecturing him about it.
You have been made for something that could refuse you and you were never going to be chosen by anything that could not. Genesis 2 shows God arranging that discovery on purpose, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes the same discovery bearable in a man who has just made it.
And if this has taken you somewhere heavier than loneliness, if it has reached not wanting to be here at all, that is not a thing to hold alone. A doctor, a counselor, somebody you trust who will pick up the phone. In the United States the 988 crisis line answers day and night. Nobody is asked to carry that by himself.
What being known actually looks like
Here is the alternative, and it is more searching than most people want and also warmer.
O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off... For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. (Psalm 139:1-4)
Not a word in my tongue. All of it. The unedited version.
And that psalm is not written in dread. Read where it goes:
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17)
The man being described as completely transparent is delighted about it.
And Paul turns the usual sentence around in a way that is easy to miss:
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God. (Galatians 4:9)
He starts to say you know God, stops himself, and corrects it to the better direction. The thing that matters most is not your grasp of Him. It is His of you.
You were made to be known by Someone with a will of His own. Psalm 139 has a man glad to be seen all the way through, and it is His Spirit who moves that from a frightening idea into a possible one.
Two people who found out they had been seen
Two short accounts, because this is the tender half.
The first is a woman named Hagar, in the desert, used by other people's arrangements and not chosen by anybody. God speaks to her there, and she does something nobody else in the Bible does. She gives Him a name.
And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? (Genesis 16:13)
Thou God seest me. Out in a place where nobody was looking and nobody would have known.
The second is a man being introduced to Jesus, who has never met him. Jesus says something warm about him before a word is exchanged, and Nathanael asks how He could possibly know that.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. (John 1:48)
Under the fig tree. On his own. Doing whatever he was doing, which we are not told and do not need to be.
He had been seen, and the seeing was warm, and it was not brought up to expose him.
You have already been seen, and it was not held against you. Genesis 16 and John 1 both have somebody discovering it, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than any effort of yours who makes that land as safety.
What God says He is after
And there is one line in Hosea that says what kind of thing He wants this to be.
Speaking about His own people, He says He will draw them out and speak to them, and then:
And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. (Hosea 2:16)
The two words there mean my husband and my master.
He is saying He does not want the arrangement version. He wants the known version, and He says so in a book largely about people who had let Him down badly.
You are not being asked for compliance and you were never wanted as an arrangement. Hosea 2 says which of the two words He is after, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a man able to want the same thing.
So name it plainly and let it be named.
You have been made to be chosen by somebody with a will of His own, and you were never going to be chosen by a thing that could not refuse you. God walked a man past every living creature in Genesis 2:20 before He made him somebody who could answer back, and He did it that way on purpose, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than your own resolve who makes that something a man can act on.
And be gentle with yourself about the wanting. The loneliness underneath this is not the fault. God is the one who said it is not good that the man should be alone, and He said it about somebody who had not yet done a single thing wrong, and Christ is in you now by a Spirit who does not handle this with disgust.
Nothing here promises the arrangement ends this week. The man says he did not stop and that the naming did not do the work. What is promised is that you are already seen and it was not held against you, and that He is after the known version and not the compliant one (Genesis 16:13, Hosea 2:16), and it is His Spirit rather than your resolve who makes saying it plainly a receiving.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over this is genuinely yours, given to you and never invented. God walked a man past everything that could not answer him and then made somebody who could, so speak to what you have settled for: you have standing to address it because He arranged that discovery Himself. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own opinion, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Genesis 2:20 and Psalm 139:1 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not how loud you say it, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Arrangement that cannot refuse me, you are not company and you cannot choose me. The Word of God says for Adam there was not found an help meet for him, and God walked him past every living thing before He said it.
- Fear of being known all the way through, you are finished in the name of Jesus. Scripture says in Psalm 139 thou hast searched me and known me, and the man who wrote that called such knowledge wonderful rather than frightening.
- Father, You said it was not good for a man to be alone before anything at all had gone wrong. I receive what Your word says in Genesis 2 and Psalm 139, and Your Spirit is the one who makes it a receiving, and I am naming plainly today what I have been using instead.
Genesis 2:20
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