The Month That Will Not Do Both

It goes on the twenty eighth. It has gone on the twenty eighth every month for nine years and it has never once been late.

His mother does not ask for it. That is important to him and he says it whenever it comes up, which is rarely, because it does not come up. She has never asked. It simply goes, and it covers the tablets and it covers a good deal else besides, and there is a nephew whose school things it has quietly paid for twice.

This month it does not work.

The hours changed in June. Not dramatically: eleven hours less a fortnight, which sounded like nothing when he was told and turned out to be the exact size of the gap between a month that works and a month that does not.

So he has been sitting at a table for two evenings with two numbers on a piece of paper, and the paper is not going to produce a third number no matter how long he looks at it.

He will send it. He has already decided that, in the way you decide something you were never actually going to decide, and it means the rent goes late, again, and the man he rents from has been decent about it twice already and decency has a limit.

And here is the rule he has been living by for nine years, which nobody gave him.

His mother must not know. Not because she would be angry, but because she would stop taking it, immediately and permanently, and she would go without the tablets and tell him she was fine.

And the people here must not know either, because a man who cannot cover his own rent while sending money abroad invites an opinion.

So it sits with him, on a Tuesday, at a table.

That is you, and the rule is costing more than the money.

Three things I will not do

Nothing here will ask you for money and nothing on this site is behind anything, and if you have met a version of this faith that wanted something from a man in your month, that was not from God. Scripture put that in writing long before you read it here, in Psalm 37:19, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes written words land.

Nothing here will tell you that a tight month reflects a shortfall in your faith. That teaching finds people in exactly your position and takes from them, and it is not what the Bible says.

And nothing here will tell you to stop sending it. That is not mine to say. What you send is love with a bank transfer attached to it, and it is not a debt and it is not a weakness, and I am not going to talk about it as a budgeting error.

You are not in this month because you got something wrong. Scripture says I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound, Philippians 4:12, and Paul is writing from inside the abased half rather than looking back on it from a comfortable chair, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man steady at a table with two numbers on a Tuesday.

The verse is about the lean season, not the escape from it

There is a line in Psalm 37 that is easy to read quickly and worth slowing right down.

They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.Psalm 37:19

Notice what it does not say. It does not say there will be no famine. It does not say the evil time will be skipped, or shortened, or that a person who trusts God will not have a month that does not work.

It says in. In the days of famine.

The promise is located inside the hard season rather than instead of it, which is far more useful to you tonight than a promise of rescue would be, because you are in one and you need something that works in here. I have no authority to say that by myself. Scripture carries it in Psalm 37:19, and the Holy Spirit carries it to you.

And then the first half: they shall not be ashamed in the evil time.

Shame is named specifically. Not lack. Shame. The psalm knows that the worst thing about a lean month is not the arithmetic, it is what a man starts to believe about himself while he does it.

You are not going to be shamed in this. Scripture says they shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied, Psalm 37:19, and the satisfying is placed inside the famine rather than after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that work in a man who has been at a table for two evenings.

The rule you were never given

Nine years, and nobody handed you that rule. You made it, early, out of love, and it has hardened into something you now obey without examining.

She must not know.

Look at what it assumes. It assumes your mother cannot be trusted with the truth about her own son. That she is a person to be managed rather than a person to be talked to.

She is a woman who raised you. She has been in tight months. She almost certainly knows more about a lean season than you do.

And there is a second thing in that rule, and this is the harder one. If she knew and stopped taking it, you would lose something you need: the sense that you are doing the thing a son does. That has been holding you up for nine years and it is not a bad thing, but it means the rule is protecting you too, and it is worth being honest about that before you decide what to do with it.

You are not obliged to keep your mother out of your own life. Scripture says bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, Galatians 6:2, and it takes two willing people to keep that law, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a son say a true sentence to his mother without it becoming a failure.

The people here

The other half of the rule is the one I would move first, because it costs you the most and protects you the least.

Nobody here knows either. Not the man you rent from, who has been decent twice and is currently guessing. Not one friend. Not anybody at a church, if you have been near one. That is Scripture's sentence and not mine, Psalm 37:19, and it is the Holy Spirit and not this page who makes it true where you are.

So you are carrying a gap in two currencies with nobody at either end. Scripture stands under that in Psalm 37:19, and the Holy Spirit does the part no sentence can do.

And here is the practical thing. The man you rent from does not know why the rent is late. What he sees is a pattern with no explanation, and human beings fill silences with the worst available story. Told the true version, plainly, before the date rather than after, most people in his position respond entirely differently, because he is not dealing with an unreliable tenant, he is dealing with a man whose hours were cut in June.

And if you have not checked whether anything is available to you for those lost hours, check. That is not charity and it is not a defeat; it is a thing that exists for exactly this.

You are not meant to hold two ends alone. Scripture says two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor, Ecclesiastes 4:9, and it is a plain practical observation about what a second person changes, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts somebody in a kitchen at the right hour.