It has gone into four closets and it has never been opened in any of them.
The tape on it is from the first move, which is now six years old and has gone yellow at the edges, and there is your handwriting on the side in a marker that has faded, and it says kitchen and misc, which even at the time was not true.
You know roughly what is in it. The tablecloth from your grandmother. The wooden bowl. The two mugs from the place you lived when you were twenty three, which is where the tablecloth got its stain.
None of that is kitchen and misc.
And every time you move you pick it up and you put it in the car yourself, because it is not heavy and because you do not want anybody else handling it, and then it goes into whichever closet is deepest in the new place and the door shuts on it.
And here is the thing you have never said out loud and which I think you have known for about two moves now.
As long as one box is still packed, you have not moved in.
Not fully. Something is still in transit. And as long as something is in transit, this address is a stage and not a place, and that is a great deal safer than the alternative.
What the box is for
Let me say the thing plainly, because a thing with a shape is much easier to put down.
That box is insurance against arriving.
If you never unpack it, you never fully land, and if you never fully land, then leaving does not cost anything. You have moved four times in six years and each one has been for a sensible reason, and each one has also been survivable, and part of the reason each one was survivable is that a piece of you had never arrived in the first place.
You have been protecting yourself from arriving, and a box that stays taped has never once made a departure hurt less. The Holy Spirit is the one who has been at the closet door in four different houses, and it is written in Acts 17 that God hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.
And I want to name the cost, because you have been paying it in a currency you did not notice.
Your grandmother's tablecloth has not been on a table in six years.
That is not a symbol. That is a fact about a cloth. It was made to go on a table with people around it, and it has spent six years in the dark, in four closets, in service of a strategy about your own feelings.
You have kept your grandmother in a closet to protect yourself from a move, and no object anywhere has ever once been safer for having been unused. Acts 17 says God determined the bounds of their habitation, and the Spirit of God is the one who decided where you would live rather than leaving it to a lease.
The bounds of their habitation
Here is the verse, and it is bigger than it first looks.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. (Acts 17:26, King James Version)
Paul is standing in Athens, talking to people who believed their city made them who they were, and he says that God set both the times and the boundaries of where people live.
The bounds of their habitation. Where you live, and for how long.
Now I want to be careful, because that verse has been used to tell people to accept things they should not accept, and I am not doing that. It is not saying your landlord is God's will or that a bad situation is holy.
What it is saying is that the place you are living is not an accident and is not outside His notice, including a rented place, including one you will leave in eighteen months.
You are living somewhere that was noticed before you got there, and an address with an end date has never once been outside what that verse covers. The Holy Spirit is the one who included the times on purpose, and the written word says He determined the times as well as the bounds.
And the times is the part I want you to have.
He set the boundaries and He set the lengths. Which means a short stay is not a failed long one. Eighteen months in a place is a bounded habitation, not an interrupted one, and it is allowed to be fully lived in for the whole of its length.
You are permitted to live completely in a place you are going to leave, and a known ending has never once been a reason to arrive halfway. Acts 17 puts the times and the bounds in the same clause, and the Spirit of God is the one who set both.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman with a taped box in the deepest closet.
You have arrived, and a sealed box in a closet has never once been the thing that kept a place from becoming yours. Acts 17 says God determined the times and the bounds of their habitation, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who set both of them.
I am not going to tell you this is the last move. I do not know that and neither do you, and the not knowing is exactly what the box was built for.
You have been paying for insurance that does not pay out, and six years of keeping something packed has never once made a leaving cheaper. The written word puts a length on a habitation without calling it unfinished, and the Spirit of God is the one who thought a bounded stay was worth setting.
You are here now, fully, for as long as this is the length of it, and a lease has never once had the authority to keep somebody half arrived. Acts 17 names the times alongside the bounds, and the Holy Spirit is the one who included both.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have a grandmother's tablecloth that belongs on a table, and six years in the dark has never once been what anybody meant by keeping something safe. It is written that He hath determined the bounds of their habitation, and the Spirit of God is with you at that closet door.
Declare this over yourself
- Box that has ridden in four cars unopened, you were never insurance and you never paid out once. Acts 17 says God hath determined the bounds of their habitation, so by the Holy Spirit I open you this week in the name of Jesus.
- Strategy of never fully arriving, you have cost me six years of a tablecloth. The written word sets the times alongside the bounds and calls a short stay a habitation, and by the Holy Spirit I take out one thing with somebody standing in the room.
- Father, You determined the times and not only the places, and You never once called a bounded stay an unfinished one. Your word says the bounds of their habitation, so by Your Spirit I arrive in the house I am actually in.
Acts 17:26
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