He Hovers At The Edge Every Time

He is always at the edge of it.

Not out of the room. Not in it either. Three or four feet back, leaning on something, with his hands in his pockets, watching what is happening at the table.

He does this every single time and he has done it for months.

And every single time you have the same two thoughts in quick succession: he came, which is good, and he will not sit down, which is not.

Then you spend some part of the evening working out whether to say something, and you never do, and afterward you are not sure whether the not saying was wisdom or cowardice.

Here is what I want to do with this. I want to give you a reason for the not saying, so that it stops being an anxious silence and becomes a deliberate one.

Because the thing he is doing at the edge of that room is not a half measure, and it is not a stage before something better, and there is a picture of it in Scripture that is treated with complete seriousness.

Every man stood at his tent door

There is a scene in Exodus that describes what a whole nation did when God came to speak with Moses.

And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door. (Exodus 33:10, King James Version)

Every man in his tent door. That is the posture, and it is the posture of an entire people at the most serious moment available to them.

Not inside. Not out in the open. At the door of the place they were standing in, watching something happen at a distance.

You are a parent whose son keeps standing where he can see it, and a person at the edge of a room has never once been a person outside it. Exodus 33:10 has a whole nation worship from their own doorways rather than from the middle of anything, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can turn a parent's reading of a shoulder against a door frame around completely.

And notice that nobody is corrected for it.

Nobody in that passage is told to come closer. The distance is not treated as a deficiency in anybody's response, and the worship happening at those doors is the real thing.

You have been reading a posture as a problem, and standing at a door has never once been a lesser way of being present than sitting down. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a deficiency out of a description, and it is written in Exodus 33 that the people rose up and worshipped from exactly where they were.

And there is one more thing in that verse worth carrying.

Every man in his tent door. Own doorway. His own place, from which he could see, and there is no suggestion anywhere that a closer position would have been a better one.

You are able to receive somebody exactly where they are standing, and a place a person chose for themselves has never once been the wrong place for them to be. It is written that all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a parent stop trying to move somebody.

Why any adjustment breaks it

Now the practical part, and it is a list of things not to do.

Do not adjust anything for him. Not the chairs, not the space, not the volume of the room.

You will want to. There is an instinct to make room, and it is warm and it is generous, and it is the one thing that would end this.

You are able to leave a room exactly as it is, and a space nobody made has never once been a space anybody was excluded from. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a room that carried on unchanged, and Exodus 33:10 has people worship from their doors with nobody rearranging anything.

Here is why adjusting breaks it, and it is worth understanding rather than just obeying.

The edge works because nothing there is being asked of him. He can arrive, watch, comment, and go, and none of it commits him to anything.

Move a chair and the edge acquires a meaning. Now there is a place for him, and every future appearance is a decision about whether to take it, and a fourteen year old will stop appearing rather than answer that weekly.

You have something functioning that would stop the moment it was noticed, and a doorway nobody arranged has never once needed arranging. The Spirit of God is the one who protects something by keeping a parent's hands still, and it is written that the people stood in their own doors and were not summoned.

And do not look up when he arrives, which is the hardest one.

A look is a welcome, and a welcome is an invitation, and an invitation has to be answered. Keep your eyes where they were and let him come in unremarked.

You are able to receive somebody without acknowledging them, and an unnoticed arrival has never once been an unwelcome one. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in an entrance nobody marked, and Exodus 33 has a whole people take up their positions without anybody directing them.

Talk to him where he stands

There is one positive thing to do, and it matters as much as the list of things not to do.

Talk to him at the edge exactly as you would talk to somebody at the table.

If he says something about what is happening, answer it. Same voice, same length, same ordinariness. If somebody asks a question and he answers it from three feet back, take the answer as though he had said it from a chair.

You are able to include somebody without moving them, and an ordinary answer given across a room has never once been a smaller thing than a conversation at a table. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something entirely level, and Exodus 33:10 has the worship from the doorways counted as worship.

Because the thing you actually want is not him in a chair. It is your household in one room, and he is in the room.

The chair was never the point. The chair is furniture, and the thing on the table is only the excuse for people to be in the same place at the same time.

You have already got the thing you were asking for, and a boy standing three feet back has never once been a boy who was not with his family. It is written that every man stood in his tent door and worshipped, and the Holy Spirit is the one who counts what is happening in a doorway.

And if he sits down one week, say nothing about that either.

You are able to let somebody move without remarking on it, and a chair taken quietly has never once needed anybody to notice out loud. It is written in Exodus 33 that the people rose up from where they already were, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in a room where nothing is being tracked.