Nothing Memorable Has Happened Here In Years

Somebody asked what your family had been up to and you genuinely could not think of anything.

Not being modest. Nothing came. You went back through months and found a series of weeks that had happened without producing anything you could describe.

And you said not much, really, and moved the conversation on, and it bothered you for two days afterward.

Here is what I think you have been doing, and it is a matter of scale rather than of fact.

You have been listening for something the size of an event. A holiday, an achievement, a story worth telling somebody at work. Those come around perhaps twice a year and they are not what a household is made of.

Everything else is arriving in a form so small that it does not register as arriving at all.

I am not going to tell you to be grateful for the little things, which is the kind of sentence that changes nothing.

I am going to change what you are listening for, and there is a passage about exactly this problem.

A still small voice

There is a scene where a man in a bad state is told to go and stand outside because God is about to pass by.

And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19:11-12, King James Version)

Three enormous things happen and God is in none of them.

Wind that breaks rocks. An earthquake. A fire. Every one of them the size of an event, and every one of them named specifically as not the thing.

You are a father in a house full of something, and a quiet household has never once been a household where nothing happened. 1 Kings 19:12 rules out three enormous things by name before it names a quiet one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of a man without any charge of ingratitude.

And notice how much text is spent on the ones that were not it.

The passage does not skip the wind and the earthquake and the fire. It describes them, at length, and then says the LORD was not in them. The ruling out is done deliberately and it takes up most of the scene.

You have been given three specific things to stop listening for, and something loud has never once been where the thing was. The Spirit of God is the one who rules out a category rather than encouraging somebody, and it is written in 1 Kings 19 that after the fire came a still small voice.

And a still small voice would be undetectable to anybody listening for an earthquake.

That is the point of the whole scene. Elijah is standing there braced for something enormous, and the actual thing is small enough to be missed by a man in the wrong posture.

You are able to change what you are listening for, and a man braced for something loud has never once been a man who was not paying attention. It is written that after the fire a still small voice, and the Holy Spirit is the one who changes a posture rather than an effort.

What has actually been happening

Now let me name the size of the things that have been going past, because they need to be specific.

Somebody said something funny on Tuesday that two of them are still using. That is a real event and it is about four seconds long.

Your youngest has started doing a thing with her hands when she concentrates, which was not there in the spring. Nobody has mentioned it. It is happening in your house.

Two of them were easy with each other for about eleven minutes on Sunday in a way they were not in January.

You have a house that has been producing things constantly, and something four seconds long has never once been too small to be an event. The Spirit of God is the one who lists what a man has walked past without any accusation, and 1 Kings 19:12 makes the quiet thing the one that counted.

And here is what happens when the scale changes, which is the reason to do it.

A household producing nothing becomes a household producing five or six things a week, and nothing about the household has changed at all. Only the size of the thing being looked for.

You are able to find a full year by changing one setting, and a house that seemed empty has never once been an empty house. It is written in 1 Kings 19 that the LORD was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man where to listen.

And there is something that will land harder, so take it gently.

Your children are not waiting for events either. They are living in the four second things, and when they are thirty they will describe this house out of them, and you have been standing in the middle of the material.

You have been inside the thing you were looking for, and a household's life has never once been happening somewhere other than where the household is. The Spirit of God is the one at work in an ordinary week, and Scripture puts the presence in the quietest thing on the mountain.

Listen for the smallest thing

Here is the instruction and it is a change of setting rather than an effort.

Listen for the smallest thing tonight rather than the biggest. And name one to yourself when you find it.

Smallest. Deliberately. Not a good moment, not something worth telling anybody. The smallest thing in twenty minutes that qualifies as something.

You are able to look for the smallest thing in a room, and something four seconds long has never once been beneath what a man could notice. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something quiet, and 1 Kings 19:12 puts the voice after the fire and makes it still and small.

And name it to yourself, silently, in words. That part matters.

A thing noticed but not worded slides away. A thing put into a sentence in your own head stays for about a week.

You have a way to keep something by wording it, and one silent sentence has never once been a small act of attention. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something named privately, and it is written that Elijah recognized the voice when it came.

And do not say it out loud tonight. Not to anybody.

Saying it makes it an occasion, and the whole point is that it is not one. Keep it, and let it sit in you.

You are able to keep something small without marking it, and an unspoken observation has never once been an observation that did not count. It is written in 1 Kings 19 that the whole encounter happened between a man and a quiet voice, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in what a man noticed and said nothing about.