The Newsletter Never Has Us In It

It comes out on the fourth.

You open it. Every month, for six years, on the fourth or the fifth, you have opened it and read it properly, from the top.

There are photographs. There are three or four buildings mentioned by name every month. There is a section at the back where somebody's anniversary gets a line.

You have never been in it.

Not once. Not in six years. Not the flood year, not the year you took on the two extra people, not the year you had the best autumn you have ever had.

And you keep reading it, which is the part that makes you feel foolish.

You have said to yourself several times that you are going to stop opening it. You have never once stopped opening it. It comes out on the fourth and you read it on the fourth.

Here is what you are actually doing when you open it, and you know this, which is why the foolishness bites.

You are looking for your own name.

Six years of looking for your own name in a document that has never had it, and knowing before you start that it will not be there, and looking anyway.

There is a verse about a completely different kind of record, and it is one of the strangest and warmest sentences in the prophets.

A book of remembrance was written

Malachi is describing a group of people talking to each other in a bad season, and then this happens.

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. (Malachi 3:16, King James Version)

There is a book. Somebody wrote it. It was written before Him, which means in His presence and at His instruction.

And what is in it is not achievements. It is people who spoke to one another and thought upon His name.

You have been written into a record that nobody circulates on the fourth of the month, and the Holy Spirit is the one who kept that record for six years. Malachi 3:16 says a book of remembrance was written before him, and He did not need anybody to submit anything.

Now look at what triggered the writing, because it is almost absurdly small.

They spake often one to another. That is all. A group of tired people in a discouraging season talking to each other, and God had a book written about it.

Not one of them submitted anything. Nobody nominated anybody. The record was made without any application process at all.

You are in a record nobody had to nominate you for, and Scripture has the book written because God hearkened rather than because anybody reported. The Spirit of God is the one who does the hearkening, and it is written in Malachi 3 that He does not need to be told.

And the phrase before that one is the reason it happened. The LORD hearkened, and heard it.

Hearkened. That is leaning in. It is what a person does when they want to catch something that is being said quietly.

You have been overheard on purpose for six years, and the Holy Spirit is the one who was leaning in. The written word has God leaning in to catch what was said rather than waiting for a report, and Malachi 3:16 is where the listening is described.

Reading it is not foolish

Let me take the embarrassment off, because it is doing more damage than the absence is.

Somewhere along the way, reading a document that never mentions you became a small and needy thing to do. It is not.

You read it because you belong to something and you want to be part of the record of the thing you belong to. That is not vanity. That is what a member of anything wants, and a person who did not want it would not have given six years.

You have been doing something that belongs to belonging rather than to vanity, and it is written that God had a book made for people whose only act was talking to each other. The Spirit of God is the one who reads a person's motive accurately, and He is not calling this needy.

And let me be fair to the newsletter, because a grievance would be worse than the ache.

Somebody puts it together. They have a page count and a rotation and a handful of things that got sent in. They are not deciding to exclude you; they have never once had a reason to think about you, which is different.

Nobody is doing anything wrong. It is a thin record, made by a busy person, and thin records leave people out.

You have not been excluded by anybody, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has never once needed a page count. Scripture puts the real record in the hands of the one who hearkens rather than in the hands of an editor, and Malachi 3 is where the other book is kept.

Write your own page

So here is the thing to do, and it takes about twenty minutes, and it is not a letter to anybody.

Write down the six things from six years that should have been in it. One page.

The flood year. The two extra people. The autumn. The woman who has been with you since the beginning and how she came to be there. Whatever the six are for you.

Then keep the page. Put it somewhere with the things you keep.

You are making a record rather than requesting one, and Malachi 3:16 shows a book being written because God was listening. The Spirit of God is the one who receives that page, and He has been holding all six of those years already.

The reason it has to be written rather than thought about is that six years of absence has taught you, quietly, that unrecorded means unremarkable.

One page in your own handwriting breaks that. It is a record. It exists. And once one exists, the fourth of the month stops being the only place a person could be written down.

You have been treating one thin document as the only record there is, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been keeping it. The written word has a book of remembrance kept somewhere no editor decides, and Malachi 3:16 is where He says so.

Then go and open in the morning, and the next one comes out on the fourth.