I Did Not Know Whether to Come In

Every page on this site opens the same way and this one is no different, because it is the sentence that keeps the rest of it honest. This is not medicine. I am not a clinician, nothing here is treatment, and nothing on this page ever stands in for a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist. If somebody has you worried, get them seen and get them seen quickly. That is not making a fuss. That is love being practical.

Now. You have been round that block twice.

You made the food. You put it in the car. You drove over there and you parked up the road, and then you sat there and thought about how tired they must be, and how they probably have people, and how the last thing anybody wants is somebody at the door.

And then you drove home with the food on the passenger seat and told yourself you were being considerate.

I want to talk about that, because I have done it, and because I now think it is one of the most common ways good people accidentally leave somebody completely alone.

The instruction runs in the direction nobody expects

There is a line in Hebrews about gathering that is usually read as an instruction about church attendance, and the reason it is in there is closer to this than that.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25, King James Version)

Read the direction of it. It does not say, receive people graciously when they come. It says do not stop turning up. The instruction is aimed at the one who might not go, and the reason given is that things are getting harder rather than easier.

And the phrase as the manner of some is tells you this was already a habit. People were already drifting off politely. Nobody was rude about it. They just stopped coming.

You are the one this instruction is aimed at, and the going has never once been the part that needed permission. Hebrews 10:25 puts the whole weight on the person deciding whether to show up, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets somebody out of a parked car.

That reframes the whole thing. You have been waiting to be sure you are wanted. The text assumes you will not be sure and tells you to go anyway.

You have been asking a question the passage never asks, and no visit has ever once needed to be pre-approved. The Spirit of God is the one who moves a person from the curb to the door, and it is written that the exhorting happens by turning up rather than by being invited.

Who actually gets to decide whether you are a bother

Let me say this plainly, because it is the part that changed it for me.

You cannot decide from a parked car whether your visit is welcome. You genuinely cannot. It is a guess, and the guess is being made by the part of a person that is frightened of being unwanted, which is not a neutral judge.

The person in the house is the only one who can answer that, and the only way they get the chance is if you knock.

You are permitted to knock and let them decide, and no household has ever once been harmed by being given the choice. Hebrews 10:25 has the assembling itself as the thing commanded, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody hand a decision back to the person it belongs to.

And here is what almost never happens: somebody opens that door and is angry that you came. What actually happens, in my experience, is that you get a yes, or you get a polite not today, and a not today is not a verdict on you. It is information.

You were never going to be an imposition by offering, and the offering has never once been the same as insisting. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the sting out of a not today, and what is written asks for the turning up and leaves the welcome where it belongs.

The plain routing, which is worth a knock on its own

Here is the part of this page that is not comfort. It sits here because a page about visiting is exactly where somebody might substitute a casserole for the thing that actually matters.

If something frightening is happening in that house right now, that is 911, and it happens before anything else does. If the heavy thing tonight is in your own mind, 988 answers, and a real person picks up. And if the one in there has been unwell for a while and nobody qualified has seen them, then the best thing you can do at that door is ask, out loud, whether they have been seen, and offer to sit with them while they ring a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist.

You are allowed to ask that question at somebody's door, and asking has never once been an intrusion. Hebrews 10:25 ties the assembling to exhorting one another, which is an active word rather than a quiet one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives somebody the nerve to ask the plain question.

In a lot of houses, nobody has asked. Everybody assumed somebody else had. A neighbor at the door is often the first person in three weeks to say it out loud.

You have a question in your mouth that nobody in that house has asked yet, and the text has never once made politeness the higher value. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in an awkward doorway conversation, and what is written puts exhorting one another right beside the gathering.