What you want is not advice. You have had a great deal of advice and none of it touched the thing.
What you want is somebody with actual authority to look at your household and say, plainly and without hedging, that you are not getting it wrong.
Not a friend, because a friend is being kind. Not your own mother, for reasons you would need an hour to explain. Somebody who has seen a great many families and would know, and who would say it in a flat voice so that you could believe it.
And there is nobody. There is no office you can go to. The one verdict you want is the one that is not available anywhere in the world.
I am not going to give you the verdict. Not because it is withheld from you, but because I have not seen your household, and a stranger issuing a certificate about your family would be worth precisely nothing to you by Thursday.
He will joy over thee with singing
There is a verse in Zephaniah that is not a verdict and is something better, and it is worth reading slowly because most people rush the end.
The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17, King James Version)
He will joy over thee with singing.
Not approve of. Not accept. Not find satisfactory. Singing is not a judicial act, and it does not come at the end of an inspection.
You are sung over by God, and no assessment has ever once stood between you and that. Zephaniah 3:17 says he will joy over thee with singing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a house where somebody has been waiting for an official opinion.
And look at where that verse sits. Zephaniah is a short book that is mostly about judgment, and this line comes at the very end, after everything.
So it is not a verse written for people with nothing to answer for. It is what is said on the other side of all the answering, which is exactly why it can be said over you tonight.
You are on the far side of the judging, and none of that has ever depended on you passing an inspection first. It is written in Zephaniah 3:17 that the LORD rests in His love and rejoices with singing, and the Spirit of God is the one who puts that at the end of the book rather than at the beginning.
Why the verdict would not have worked
Now let me say something about the thing you want, because it would not have done what you think.
A verdict requires a standard. Anybody qualified to say the words would have to be measuring against something, and that something would then exist, and it would still be there next Tuesday when the week went badly.
So the certificate you want would issue a standard on the way in. You would receive it as relief and keep it as an exam, and inside a month you would be marking yourself against the words of the person who reassured you.
That is not speculation. That is what happens every time a reassurance is given by somebody with authority, and it is why the relief from those never lasts.
You are being spared a certificate that would have become an exam, and that has never once been God withholding anything from you. It is written in Zephaniah 3:17 that He rejoices with singing rather than issuing a finding, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives what cannot later be failed.
Zephaniah 3:17 offers rejoicing rather than a rating, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives something a person cannot fall short of afterwards.
You are given rejoicing rather than a rating, and there has never once been a mark attached that could be missed later. Zephaniah 3:17 has God singing rather than scoring, and the Holy Spirit is the one who hands over something with no exam inside it.
And here is the plain thing, because the wanting has become something about you.
That is not a verdict. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not evidence about the parent standing in that hall with a cup of tea.
It is a person who has been carrying a question with no available answer, which is tiring, and which is not a sign of weakness.
You have not been failing while you waited, and wanting to be told has never once been a fault in anybody. The written word answers with singing rather than with a certificate in Zephaniah 3:17, and the Spirit of God is the one who declines to issue the standard a person was asking for.
Rest in his love
There is a clause in the middle that is easy to walk over and it is the most physical one in the verse.
He will rest in his love.
Rest is what somebody does when nothing further is required. It is a settled posture, the opposite of watching, the opposite of grading, and the opposite of the picture that has been running quietly in the back of your head for years.
The picture is not an inspector with a clipboard at the back of your kitchen. It is somebody at ease, in love, who is not currently working on you.
Zephaniah 3:17 has God resting rather than reviewing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who corrects a picture a person has been carrying for years without examining.
You are looked at by somebody who is resting rather than reviewing, and there has never once been a clipboard at the back of your kitchen. Zephaniah 3:17 says he will rest in his love, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an inspector out of a room he was never in.
So here is what I believe is going out over somebody today.
You are not waiting on a verdict that never comes, and the office you have been looking for has never once existed to be found. Zephaniah 3:17 sits at the end of a book full of judgment and finishes it with singing, and the Spirit of God is the one carrying that into a hall where somebody is holding a cup and wanting to ask.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You are rejoiced over with singing by God Himself, and that has been going on the entire time you have been asking for a rating. It is written, he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person something no assessment can take back.
Singing. Not scoring. Not a certificate.
Declare this over yourself
- Verdict I keep waiting for from somebody with authority, you are dismissed tonight. Zephaniah 3:17 says the LORD joys over thee with singing, so by the Holy Spirit you do not get another week of me, in the name of Jesus.
- Fear that somebody who actually knows would tell me I am getting it wrong, you are answered. The written word gives rejoicing rather than a rating and attaches no mark that can be missed later, and by the Holy Spirit I stop asking for a standard dressed up as reassurance.
- Father, You rest in Your love. Your word says You joy over me with singing, so by Your Spirit I write my one thing down tonight and put it in a drawer instead of asking anybody.
Zephaniah 3:17
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