He Asked For My Face, Not My Position

The meeting finished at twenty past nine and Ruthanne stayed to stack the chairs because she always does and because she did not want to walk out with anybody.

Three hours. It had been billed as ninety minutes.

She had gone in prepared. She is always prepared and it is one of the reasons people ask her to things. She had her position on the question, and she had the two objections to it written down and answered, and she had a way of saying the difficult part that would not put anybody's back up.

She used all of it. She was good, and she was fair, and she did not raise her voice once, and two people came up afterwards and said so.

And she stood in an emptying hall at twenty past nine putting chairs on a cart and felt entirely hollow, and could not for the life of her work out why.

Her friend Adaeze, who had also stayed, said, "Good meeting."

Ruthanne said, "Was it?"

And then she said, because Adaeze is the person she says things to: "I have not talked to God about anything except that question in about five weeks."

She said it out loud and then she stood still with a chair in her hand.

Five weeks of preparing. Five weeks of anticipating the objections. Five weeks of going over the difficult part in the car so that it would land properly.

And in all of that, every single time she had come to God about it, she had come with the question. She had brought Him her position, repeatedly, for review, the way you would take a document to somebody who could check it.

She had not once come with anything else. Not the thing about her mother. Not the fact that she has been dreading Christmas since about August. Not one thing that was not the question.

She said: "I have been briefing Him."

You may do the same. It might not be a meeting. It might be a subject you have been going over and over, and the specific thing that happens is that God becomes the person you check your position with, and gradually the only thing you ever bring is the position. And nobody has ever pointed out what He actually asked you for.

The Invitation Is For A Face

There is a line in Psalm 27 where the writer quotes God back to Himself, and the thing quoted is startlingly personal.

"When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek."Psalm 27:8

Seek ye my face.

Not: bring me your conclusions. Not: come and be assessed on where you have landed. A face is what you look at when you are with somebody rather than when you are working on something.

And the answer given back is in the same register. Thy face, Lord, will I seek. There is no content in that sentence. Nothing is being submitted. It is a person saying they are coming for the person.

You have been invited to bring a face rather than a case. Psalm 27 puts the invitation and the answer both in the register of presence and never once in the register of a position, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes that and stands it in an emptying hall at twenty past nine with a chair in somebody's hand.

And notice the phrase before it. When thou saidst. He is remembering an invitation that was already issued. The invitation is not something the psalmist worked up; it was given, and his part is answering.

You were asked for yourself, and the asking came first. That is what the written word says about seeking, and it is the Spirit of God who makes that land in somebody who has spent five weeks briefing Him.

This Site Does Not Want Your Position Either

Now say it clearly, because a page about the difference between a face and a position which then asks for your position would be absurd.

This site does not settle the question you were in that room about, and it does not ask you where you stand on it. It does not lean, it is not withholding a view as a technique, and it does not think less of anybody in that hall on either side of it.

You can hold whatever you hold. Nothing here is trying to move you an inch, and if you came looking for an argument to use, this is the wrong site and that is not a criticism of you.

You are not being asked for a position anywhere on this page. It is written that the Lord looks on the heart, which is a statement about what is actually being attended to, and His Spirit is the one who has been in the room for every one of the five weeks including the parts in the car.

And say the guard, because it is the guarantee this whole site runs on. Nothing here asks you for anything. No figure, no proportion, no percentage, no practice, no side, and nothing routed to any person, cause, church or work anywhere at all, this one included. You are as fully His with your position exactly where it is, that is the written shape of it, and the Holy Spirit is the one keeping this page from asking you to declare anything.