I Am Relieved And I Feel Guilty About It

The first thing you felt was relief and it arrived before anything else.

Not on the day. About an hour after, standing in your own hallway with your coat still on, and it came up through you and it was unmistakable.

Relief. Clean and enormous and the first honest feeling of the whole thing.

And then, about four seconds later, the second feeling arrived, and the second feeling has had six weeks and the first one had about four seconds.

You have been prosecuting yourself since.

Because a woman who is relieved must not have loved it. And if she did not love it, then what were the nine years, and what about the people, and what about the woman who said what she said to you in the second year.

So the relief has been filed as evidence. Evidence that the whole thing was a burden you were secretly waiting to put down, and that everybody who thought you were committed to it was being fooled.

That is a heavy case to be running against yourself and it has been running unopposed for six weeks.

There is a verse about condemnation and it is more absolute than most people let it be.

No condemnation

Paul opens a chapter with a sentence that does not have a qualification in it.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1, King James Version)

No condemnation. Now. There is therefore now none.

Not less. Not manageable. None, in the present tense, as a current state of affairs rather than a future arrangement.

You have no condemnation available to you at all, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a fact rather than a hope. Romans 8:1 says there is therefore now none rather than there will one day be none, and it has been the fact for the whole six weeks.

Now let me be plain about what that does to the case you have been running.

The case has a prosecutor, and the prosecutor is you, and the verdict being sought is condemnation.

And the verse says the verdict is not available. Not that it would be unfair. Not available, as in there is none to be had, by anybody, including a woman in her own hallway.

You have been seeking a verdict that does not exist, and it is written that there is therefore now no condemnation. The Spirit of God is the one who closed that court, and Romans 8 opens with the closing of it.

And there is something about the relief itself that is worth saying, because the case rests entirely on a wrong assumption.

Relief is not the opposite of love. It never has been. A woman is relieved at the end of a long labor and it says nothing whatsoever about the child.

Relief is a report on weight, not a report on worth. And nine years of carrying something is heavy whether or not the thing being carried was loved.

You have been reading a report on weight as a report on love, and the Holy Spirit is the one who knows exactly what the relief was reporting on. Scripture removes the whole verdict rather than adjusting it, and He is not confused about it.

Both were true in that hallway

Let me put the two together, because they have been treated as though they cannot both stand.

You loved parts of it. That is true, and the woman in the second year is true, and the young one you trained is true, and none of that gets withdrawn by anything.

And it was heavy. Nine years heavy. Six days most weeks heavy. And when the weight came off, a healthy body reported the change immediately, in a hallway, with a coat still on.

Both of those are facts about the same nine years and neither one cancels the other.

You have two true things rather than a contradiction, and the written word puts the condemnation entirely out of the picture rather than weighing anything up. The Spirit of God is the one who holds both without difficulty, and Romans 8:1 removes the court where they would have to compete.

And here is the thing about the six weeks that will move you.

The relief got four seconds and then it got buried under a case. Which means it has never actually been felt properly, and an unfelt relief keeps trying to arrive.

That is why it keeps coming back and why you keep prosecuting it again. It has not been allowed to land.

You have something that needs letting rather than defending, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a thing land in a person. It is written that there is now no condemnation to be had at all, and Romans 8:1 is why there is nothing standing in the way of it.

Say it and let it stand

So here is the thing to do, and it is one sentence, and the hard part is what comes after.

Say out loud: I am relieved.

Then stop. Do not add anything. Do not say but I loved it. Do not say and that does not mean anything about the people. Do not defend it.

You are letting a true thing stand rather than arguing for it, and Romans 8:1 says there is therefore now no condemnation. The Spirit of God is the one who receives it undefended, and He is not going to make the case you have been making.

The reason nothing can be added is that every addition is a plea. A plea assumes a charge, and assuming a charge is what has kept this running for six weeks.

Say it flat, with nothing after it, and there is no charge in the room for anything to answer.

You have been answering a charge that was never filed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who closed it before you ever stood in that hallway. The written word says the condemnation is now absent rather than pending, and Romans 8:1 is where the closing is written.

Then go on with the day, and let the relief be what it is.