Half past twelve. The van, on the far side of the car park, where he parks now, which is not where he used to park.
It takes about twenty minutes. Then he puts the phone face down on the passenger seat and looks out of the windscreen at nothing at all for the rest of the break.
That is the part he would tell you about, if he ever told anybody about any of it. Not the twenty minutes. The forty afterwards.
Because what comes next is a voice, and it is his own, and it says things to him that he has never said to another human being in his life. It calls him names. It tells him what he is, in the flat certain way of somebody reading out a fact. And it goes on, sometimes until three, sometimes until he gets home and is short with somebody who has done nothing.
Then it clears. And by the following lunchtime the whole thing resets.
It has been years. He could tell you roughly when it started and he could tell you exactly what was going on in his life at the time, and the two facts have never once helped.
He has stopped. He has stopped many times, for eleven days, for six weeks, once for four months, and the four months were the worst because of what the return did to him.
He is not a bad man and everybody who knows him would tell you so. He is a decent worker and a decent father and there is nobody in his life who has the faintest idea that half past twelve exists.
That is you, and the forty minutes are doing more damage than the twenty.
Four things, and I mean them
The first. I am not going to shame you. Not once on this page. Shame is not the cure for this, it is the fuel, and there is nothing at the bottom of it except tomorrow at half past twelve.
The second. There is real help for this and it is ordinary. Some men need a counselor, some need a group, some need a filter on a phone and one other man who knows. None of that is a failure of faith; it is what getting free actually looks like for most people, and God is entirely at home in all of it.
The third. If what you are looking at involves anybody who cannot consent, or anybody under age, stop reading this and get proper help today, because that is a different situation with a different urgency. This rests on Scripture in Psalm 116:16, and on the Holy Spirit who makes what is written a living thing.
The fourth. Nothing on this page is going to tell you this would be gone if you believed harder. That is not in the Bible and it has kept more men in vans than it has ever freed.
You are not carrying this because you did not want it enough. Scripture says God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, 1 Corinthians 10:13, and the faithfulness in that verse sits on His side, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a car park at half past twelve without a word of contempt in Him.
The verse is about who did the loosing
There is a line in Psalm 116 that is short and worth a great deal to a man in your position.
O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.Psalm 116:16
Thou hast loosed my bonds. Look at who does it. Not I broke them. Not I finally got free. The verb belongs to God and the man is the one it was done to.
That is the opposite of how you have been going at this for years. Every attempt has been you against it: resolve, dates, streaks, a fresh start on a Monday. And every failure has been read as evidence about your character, because if the loosing is your job then a return is your fault. Scripture already said it in Psalm 116:16, and the Holy Spirit is the one doing the work, not the sentence.
The psalm hands the job to somebody else.
And notice the word bonds. It is a restraint word, something that holds a person, and it tells you what the writer thought he was in. Not a bad habit he could not be bothered to drop. Something that had him.
You are not the one who has to do the loosing. Scripture says thou hast loosed my bonds, Psalm 116:16, and the verb is God's throughout, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does it rather than standing back to see whether you manage.
The forty minutes are the engine
Here is the mechanism, and I want you to see it clearly, because it is the thing that has kept this running for years.
Twenty minutes, then forty minutes of a voice.
That voice feels like conscience. It feels like the good part of you, holding the line. It is not.
Conviction from God is specific, it is about the action, it is warm even when it is sharp, and it always comes with a road forward. It says: that is not good for you, here is the next step, I am here.
Your afternoon voice never gives you a step. It gives you a verdict about what you are. And a man who believes he is that thing goes to the van the next day, because that is what that thing does. None of that is mine to declare on my own. Scripture said it first in Psalm 116:16, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings it the distance.
So the shame is not the brake on this. It is the engine. The twenty minutes produce the forty, and the forty produce the next twenty, and the loop has been turning for years and it has never once been interrupted at the point where it actually spins.
You are not being convicted at one o'clock. Scripture says there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1, and condemnation is a verdict word while conviction is a direction word, and the Holy Spirit has never once left a man with a verdict and nowhere to go.
The far side of the car park
You moved where you park. You know when you did it and you know why.
That detail matters more than anything else in your account, because it tells you what this actually runs on, and it is not appetite.
It runs on being alone and unseen.
A man in a van on the far side of a car park is a man who has arranged, quite carefully, to be unreachable for an hour a day. And every one of those hours has taught the same thing: this happens where nobody is.
Which means the single most useful change available to you is not more resolve. It is being somewhere else.
Eat with somebody. Park where you used to. Sit in a cafe. Walk for the first ten minutes. Not because a walk is holy, but because the thing has one condition and the condition is solitude, and taking the condition away does more in one week than four months of willpower did.
You are not required to fight this alone in a locked cab. Scripture says two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor... and if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, and it is a plain practical observation about what a second person changes, and the Holy Spirit is the one who arranges an ordinary human being into a car park at half past twelve.
I am not going to ask you to promise anything about tomorrow. That promise breaks by Thursday and costs more than it was worth.
Two things instead, and they are both about the conditions rather than about your character.
First, do not be alone at half past twelve. This week, five days. Eat with somebody, park in the old place, walk to the shop. That is the whole instruction and it is worth more than another vow.
Second, tell one man. Not the details. The plain sentence: I have a thing I do on my lunch break and I have been fighting it on my own for years. A pastor, a friend, a counselor. Somebody outside your house.
And when the voice starts at one o'clock, say out loud that it is not conviction. Once. In the cab, aloud, in your own voice. It is a verdict without a road and you have taken it for years as though it were God, and it is not.
You are not the one who has to break these, and the loosing was never given to you as a job. Scripture says thou hast loosed my bonds, Psalm 116:16, and the Holy Spirit has been in that van every afternoon of every one of those years and has never once spoken to you the way that voice does.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, standing outside, however quietly you need to. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the standing to speak was given to you and no lunchtime withdraws it. Scripture carries every line here and the Holy Spirit brings them the distance. Nothing here sets God a date; He answers in His own way and the outcome is His, and however He answers, none of it is a verdict on what you are.
- Forty minutes of self-hatred that arrive every afternoon like a second shift, you are not conviction and you have never once freed me. The Word of God says thou hast loosed my bonds, and in the name of Jesus I stop taking a verdict with no road out as though it came from God.
- Arrangement I made to be unreachable, get out of this house. Scripture says two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor, Ecclesiastes 4:9, and the Holy Spirit has never once required me to fight this in a locked cab.
- Lord, the loosing is Your verb in that verse and it was never handed to me as a job. I am not alone at half past twelve this week, and I am telling one man outside my house the plain sentence.
Psalm 116:16
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