The Spare Stool by the Cajón

For the one whose spare seat has been out for months with nobody in it.

Who exactly is that second stool for?

There are two stools in the corner of the garage. One is yours, worn on the left side where you sit, and the other has been there since March with nothing on it but a coil of cable.

The cajon sits in front of the first stool where it always has. The second stool has no instrument in front of it whatsoever, which is the detail worth holding on to for the next few minutes.

There's a boy at the end of the road, about fourteen, who has twice stopped outside the garage when the door was up and stood there for a minute or so before going on. Both times you noticed him. Both times you said nothing at all.

He wasn't being nosy either time. He stood at the angle people stand at when they want to see something and don't want to be seen wanting to, which is an angle you recognize because you stood at it yourself at his age.

You ran a team of six for nine years. You taught four people from nothing. Two of them are still at it, and one of them is better than you now, which you mention to people rather more often than you mean to.

The grace is manifold, and that second stool has been out since March waiting for one of the many kinds. The written word calls it manifold, and the Spirit has had a boy stop at your door twice.

The Stool Came Out in March

Start with the stool, because you have never asked yourself why it is there.

You brought it in from the garden in March. You cannot now remember deciding to, and there was no occasion that required a second seat in a garage.

It has a coil of cable on it, which is how an object survives in a garage without ever being questioned. Anything with something on top of it looks like storage, and storage never has to be explained to anybody.

But you did not need a surface. There is a bench two feet away with room on it. A man who wants somewhere to put a cable does not carry a stool in from the garden in March.

You carried a second seat in from the garden and have never asked yourself why. The written word says the grace takes many forms, and the Spirit has been arranging the room since March.

Stewards of the Manifold Grace

Here's the verse, and the word manifold is the one doing the work.

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.1 Peter 4:10 (KJV)

Manifold means many kinds, of many sorts, taking many forms. Peter is saying that the grace being distributed is not one uniform substance, and that what has been put into you is one of its many varieties.

Yours involves hands, timing, and a wooden box. It also involves an ability to show a person where the beat sits that you have never once been able to put into words.

Peter wrote that to scattered believers with no organization and no premises at all, and it reaches past them to a garage with two stools in the corner.

The grace takes many forms, and yours involves hands and timing. The written word calls it manifold, and the Spirit distributed this variety to you.

One to Another Is Singular

Look at the phrase after the instruction, because the number in it is smaller than what you are used to.

Minister the same one to another. One, to another. It describes a transaction between two people, which is the smallest unit the language allows.

Nine years of a team of six has calibrated you to a different scale entirely. You think in rehearsals, rotas, and groups, and one fourteen year old on a stool in a garage doesn't register as ministry on that scale at all.

That calibration is the problem rather than the boy. An instrument set to measure a team of six will read almost nothing for a single person, which is a fact about the instrument rather than about the person standing in front of it.

But the verse names the two person version. That is the unit Peter chose to describe, and everything larger is an aggregation of it rather than an improvement on it.

Peter names the two person version as the unit, and everything larger is built from it. The written word describes one to another, and the Spirit has brought exactly one.

I Am Not Telling You to Go and Find Him

Be sensible, because a man in a garage and a boy of fourteen requires care.

Don't go down the road and knock. Speak to his people first if you know them, keep the door up and the light on, and let him come to you, which he has already twice come close to doing.

Nor am I telling you that this replaces what you had. It doesn't. One boy is not a team of six and a garage is not what you gave nine years to.

What I want off you is the scale. Not the caution. Not the nine years.

Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.

Written by Santiago This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.