You did the thing. That is what makes this article necessary.
Somebody told you that getting outside would help. You were skeptical and you did it anyway, which took more than anybody watching would have guessed. You got three children out of a door on a day you had nothing.
And it was awful. Somebody cried for four streets. You were colder when you came back than when you left, and the evening was worse than the evenings usually are.
And now you have evidence. Not a feeling. Evidence, from your own house, that going out did not help.
And every article you have read since has quietly asked you to ignore it, and none of them have answered it, and that is why you have stopped reading them.
In quietness and in confidence
There is a line in Isaiah about where strength comes from that is worth reading for what it does not promise.
For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. (Isaiah 30:15, King James Version)
In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
Notice the words. Returning. Rest. Quietness. Not one of them is an activity. Every one of them is a stopping, and the strength is attached to the stopping rather than to a thing done.
You are not being told that a hard thing will fix a hard day, and it was never activity that was promised to produce anything. Isaiah 30:15 attaches the strength to quietness and rest rather than to effort, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as permission rather than as a lecture about slowing down.
And notice the last three words, because most people skip them. And ye would not. The offer is recorded as refused, plainly, and the verse does not go on to shame anybody for it. It states it and moves on.
You have a God who records a refusal without pursuing it, and it was never a demand that anybody accept a good thing on schedule. The written word lets the ye would not stand, and the Spirit of God is what makes a woman who tried it and hated it safe to sit with.
Your evidence is good
Now the thing that nobody has said to you, and it is the whole reason this article exists.
Your evidence is good. Keep it.
A woman went out with nothing, on a bad day, with three children, for twenty minutes, and it made the day worse. That is a true finding about that day and those conditions, and it should not be argued with, because it happened and there was a witness to it.
What is wrong is not your evidence. It is the claim it was tested against.
The claim was: getting outside helps. That is far too big a claim, it was never true in that shape, and one bad afternoon is enough to break it, which is exactly what happened. One bad twenty minutes is real evidence about one bad twenty minutes, and staying in is not a smaller answer than going out.
You are not somebody who failed at this, and it was never your finding that was faulty. Isaiah 30 puts the strength in the stopping and lets a refusal stand in the record, which is exactly why the Spirit of God does not ask a woman to argue with what she saw.
And here is the smaller claim, which is the one this site actually stands behind: on some days, some amount of outside costs less than staying in and returns a little. That is all. It is not a promise, it does not work on the hard days, and it is not a treatment for anything.
Ten minutes with nothing attached
So the practical part, and it is deliberately unambitious, because ambition is what broke it last time.
Sit outside your own front door for ten minutes with no expectation attached to it at all.
You are able to do a thing that is not supposed to achieve anything, and it has never once needed to work to have been worth ten minutes. The passage attaches the strength to quietness rather than to effort, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman on a step who is expecting nothing from it.
Not twenty minutes. Not a walk. Not three children out of a door. A step, ten minutes, and nothing riding on it.
And do not check afterward whether it helped. That is the mechanism that broke last time. The checking turns a ten minute sit into a test, and a test can fail, and enough things have failed in this house already.
And on the days when even the step is not there, stay in, and let that stand with nothing added to it, because a site that cannot say that has not told you the truth about anything else either.
You are permitted a day with none of this in it, and it has never once been a report on a woman who is doing her best on nothing. Isaiah 30:15 lets the ye would not stand without a pursuit, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in a house on the day nobody goes anywhere.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman holding real evidence that nobody has answered.
You are not somebody who did it wrong, and you were never given a claim small enough to be true. I am not promising you that ten minutes helps. Isaiah 30:15 puts the strength in returning and rest and quietness, and then lets a refusal stand without pursuing anybody about it, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who agrees with a woman about what she actually saw.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have permission to sit outside expecting nothing, and it has never once had to work in order to have been worth doing. The written word attaches strength to stopping and lets an unaccepted offer stand in the record, and the Spirit of God is the one who is on a doorstep with somebody who is not testing anything.
Ten minutes. Nothing riding on it.
Declare this over yourself
- Twenty minutes that made a bad day worse, you are true evidence about one afternoon and you are not a verdict on my whole house. Isaiah 30:15 says in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, so by the Holy Spirit I sit outside for ten minutes with nothing riding on it in the name of Jesus.
- Claim that getting outside helps, you were always too big to be true and my own evidence broke you. The written word attaches the strength to returning and rest and lets a refusal stand in the record, and by the Holy Spirit I am done being asked to ignore what I actually saw.
- Father, You let ye would not stand there in the verse without one word of pursuit. Your word in Isaiah 30 puts the strength in the stopping rather than in the doing, so by Your Spirit I sit outside today expecting nothing, and I do not check afterward.
Isaiah 30:15
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