The photographer has a small stepladder that he carries to every wedding and that is, by his own account, the single most important item he owns.
Outside the hall, on the grass, with the light going long. Forty-odd people being organized by a man who does this every Saturday and who has the exact tone required: friendly, completely in charge, and immune to being argued with.
Tall ones at the back. Anybody with a small child on the end so they can step out if it goes wrong. And front row for the ones who are shorter and the ones who are older and, in this case, for an aunt who has been put there by the bride personally, with a hand on her arm and the words come on, you are down the front.
Confetti on the grass. Somebody's hat has already gone once and is now being held.
And she is in the front row, and the count is coming, and what is going through her is not about the photograph.
She has had a good day. A genuinely good day, and she has caught herself enjoying it four or five times, and every single time there has been a small internal pause, like a person checking whether they are allowed.
That has been going on for years. She has been waiting for permission to enjoy an ordinary good day, and she has never been able to say who she is waiting for it from, and it comes out of what another person did a long way back.
Stand next to me a minute. Today I am speaking to you, the one carrying what somebody else did. I will not ask you what it was, and nothing here wants the thing itself.
And I will say the honest thing first: I am not promising you the pause stops. What I am going to do is show you where the permission is, and that it is in writing.
The permission and the reason attached to it
There is a verse in Ecclesiastes that reads like an instruction and is actually a release, and the clause on the end of it is the part that matters for you.
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.Ecclesiastes 9:7
Go thy way. That is a dismissal in the good sense. It is what you say to somebody whose business with you is concluded and who is free to get on with their life. Off you go.
Then the instruction, and it is an instruction, which is worth sitting with. Eat thy bread with joy. Not tolerate your bread. Not get through the day. Enjoy it, and enjoy it on purpose, and the Preacher gives it in the imperative.
And then the reason, joined on with a because.
For God now accepteth thy works.
The permission is not held by anybody in that field. Not the family, not the people who know things, not the person who did what they did. The permission is God's to give and He has given it and the Preacher has written the reason down.
You have permission to enjoy an ordinary good day, and you were given it in writing before you started looking for it. I am not being loose with the text. The written word gives the instruction in the imperative and attaches a settled acceptance as the reason, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes that off a page and gets it into a woman standing in a front row on the grass.
Now, which is a word about the current state of things
And now the small word in that clause, because it is doing a great deal.
God now accepteth.
Now. Not eventually. Not once a certain amount of time has gone by. Not once the day has been earned by a run of them.
The Preacher is the most clear eyed man in the Bible about how much of life does not resolve. He has spent eleven chapters saying so. He is not a man who hands out cheap permissions, and it is precisely him who says: now, God accepts, go and enjoy your bread.
Which means the pause you feel five times a day is not checking with God. It cannot be. He has already answered, in the imperative, with the reason attached.
You are accepted now rather than in principle, and you were accepted on every good day you spent asking whether you were allowed one. Scripture puts the word now in the reason clause on purpose, and it is His Spirit, not a resolution you make on the grass, who lets an answered question stop being asked.
So here is the thing, and it is one ordinary act.
Choose one ordinary thing today, in advance, and do it in full view with your head up.
Stay in the front row. Chin up on three. Do not do the thing where you look slightly down and to the side at the last second, which you have done in every photograph since you were twenty-six.
Choose it now, while he is still moving the tall ones about, so it is not a matter of nerve on the count.
And hear this, because it is the guardrail on the whole message. I am not grading your day. If you enjoy the afternoon and the pause still comes five times, that is not a failure and nothing is being marked. And if next week is heavy, next week undoes nothing whatsoever, and this afternoon still happened.
And I will say one thing straight, because a page is not always the help a person needs. If what was done to you is still happening, or if today feels frightening, reach for a person rather than a page. In the United States you can call or text 988 at any hour and a real person answers. In the United Kingdom, 116 123. Anywhere else, the emergency number where you live or a national line. You never have to describe anything to anybody in order to ask for help staying.
You are accepted by God now, and He accepted you on every good day you spent waiting to be told you could have one. That is what the written word settles in Ecclesiastes 9, and the Holy Spirit is the one carrying it off a page and onto a piece of grass with confetti on it.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that is the ground under every word coming next. This is not a feeling being worked up. It is agreement out loud with permission already given, and how this afternoon goes, and how next week goes, the outcome is His. The written word is what settled it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries it.
- Photographer counting to three, you are a man on a small stepladder and a camera and a wind. You have never once decided anything about anybody in your life. The written word says go thy way and eat thy bread with joy, and my chin is up on three.
- Pause I make before I let myself enjoy anything, you are checking with somebody who answered a long time ago, and I close the question in the name of Jesus. It was not mine and it never wrote my name. The permission was never held by anybody in this field.
- Lord, You accept now and You put the word now in the sentence Yourself. I am staying down the front and dancing to the one everybody dances to. And You accepted every good day I spent asking whether I was allowed one.
Ecclesiastes 9:7
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