She Never Opened the Door

Tonight we are making a pot of creamy potato soup, and there is no cream in it, which is the good trick.

Here is the whole method in one paragraph. Cook a chopped onion and two chopped sticks of celery slowly in a good lump of butter in a pot with salt, about eight minutes. Add four peeled and chopped potatoes and five cups of water or broth, and a bay leaf if there is one. Bring it up and simmer for twenty minutes until the potatoes fall apart when you press one. Take out about a third of it, mash or blend that, and stir it back in, which makes the whole pot thick and creamy without any cream at all. Add a splash of milk if you have it. Salt properly, black pepper, and something sharp at the end, vinegar or lemon. Anything green on top. It feeds five, it costs about two dollars, and it travels better than almost any other soup.

Now, the reason I am writing is not the soup.

It is that she did not open the door.

You knew she was in trouble. You did not ask what she needed, because people in trouble cannot answer that question. You cooked, you put it in a dish with a lid, you drove over, and you knocked.

And the light was on and the car was there and nobody came. You waited a reasonable amount of time, and then a slightly unreasonable amount of time, and then you walked back down the path carrying a warm dish and got in your car.

And what you have been doing since then is going back over it. Whether you should have called first. Whether you have misread the whole friendship. Whether she did not want it to be you.

The one who stands and knocks

There is a sentence in Revelation that is usually read as an invitation, and tonight I want you to read it as a description of somebody's posture.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20, King James Version)

Look at what He is doing. Standing outside. Knocking. Waiting. Not entering, not forcing, not leaving.

And it is addressed to a church that had shut Him out, and He is not sulking about it and He is not walking away. He stands and He knocks, and the whole promise on the other side of it is a meal.

There is one clear thing in that for you tonight. Standing at a closed door with food is not a lesser position. It is the position He occupies Himself.

You are standing exactly where God stands, and He has never once treated a closed door as a reason to stop coming. Revelation 3:20 has the Lord Himself outside, knocking, with a meal on the other side of the opening, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes that off a page and puts it into a car outside somebody's house.

You have not overstepped, and heaven has never once called a person presumptuous for arriving with food. It is written that He stands at the door and knocks, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in the room where the potatoes are going soft.

What a closed door usually means

Now let me say what is most likely happening in that house, because your version is almost certainly not it.

People in real trouble do not answer doors. Not because of who is knocking. Because opening a door means being seen, and being seen means a face, and a face has to be arranged, and arranging a face is beyond a person in a bad week.

It is also possible she was asleep at four in the afternoon, or crying, or on the phone to somebody about something difficult, or simply could not.

You are standing where the Lord Himself stands, and a shut door has never once been the last word on a friendship. Scripture puts it plainly in Revelation 3:20, and the Holy Spirit carries it further than a page can: He stands and He knocks and He does not walk away.

None of those are about you. Almost nothing about a closed door is ever about the person on the outside of it.

An unanswered knock is not a verdict on a friendship.

You are not unwanted at that house, and God has never once let a closed door speak for the person behind it. The passage has the knocking continue regardless of what the door does, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates a shut door from a rejection.

You have done the right thing tonight and it did not look like it worked. Revelation 3 has the Lord persist at a door that had been closed against Him on purpose, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a person standing there without it becoming humiliation.

Leave it and send three words

Here is the practical part, and it is specific, and I want you to do it exactly this way.

Go back. Do not knock. Put the dish on the step, in a bag if it is cold, and walk away.

Then send three words: soup on step.

Nothing else. No question about how she is. No hope that she is okay. No mention of having knocked earlier. Because every one of those requires a reply, and a reply is the exact thing she cannot produce, and a message that demands nothing is the only kind that helps this week.

You have found a way to love somebody who cannot answer, and God has never once made a reply the price of being cared for. It is written that a meal waits on the far side of a door that has not opened, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a dish on a step into that same patience.

And then leave it entirely alone. She will eat it or she will not, and either way she will know that somebody came, and that the somebody did not require anything from her in exchange.

That is what love looks like on a week when a person cannot open a door.

You are able to feed somebody who cannot answer you, and God has never once made a response the price of being cared for. Revelation 3:20 has a meal waiting on the far side of a door that has not opened yet, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a dish on a step into exactly that.