Let me tell you what the arithmetic sounds like, because I have heard it in a hundred kitchens and it is always almost the same sentence.
There are nineteen of us. Or eleven, or six, or thirty-one at Christmas. And one of me.
And then the maths starts. What difference does one make to nineteen. If the nineteen are going one way and I am praying on my own in the mornings, that is not a fair fight, that is not even a fight, that is one person whispering at a moving train.
And I want to say straight away that I understand the sum, and I am not going to tell you off for doing it. It is not faithlessness. It is a person looking honestly at a proportion.
But I have come to say something to that sum tonight, and I have to say two things at once, and one of them is going to sound like it is taking something away. It is not. It is taking a weight off you that was never yours and that has been breaking your back for years.
God goes looking for one
There is a verse in Ezekiel that gets preached at people, and I want to preach it the other way round tonight, because I think it has been used to load people up when it was never doing that.
And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. (Ezekiel 22:30, King James Version)
Now, hear how that usually gets used. It gets used as a warning. Be the one, or look what happens. And people walk out of that carrying a nation on their shoulders, and the ones who take it most seriously are always the ones already carrying the most.
But look at what the verse is actually reporting. It is telling you what God does. He goes looking.
Not for a committee. Not for a movement. He sought for a man. Singular. That is His stated search, and it is the smallest possible number, and He is the one who set the number.
You are the size God goes looking for, and one has never once been beneath His notice. Ezekiel 22:30 says He sought for a man among them rather than a multitude, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person hear a verse like that as being wanted rather than as being warned.
Now the part that takes the weight off
Here is the second thing, and I need you to hear it as clearly as the first, because half of what has exhausted you came from only ever being told the first.
The outcome is not yours.
Look at that verse again. Who is doing the seeking? God. Who has the land in His hands? God. Who decides what happens to it? God. The one He is looking for is not the one holding it up. The one He is looking for is the one who stands there.
That is what standing in a gap is. It is presence. It is being in the place. The hedge is not built out of your effort and the outcome is not manufactured by your intensity, and I want to say plainly that no amount of praying you do or do not do is what settles the eternity of anybody in your family. That belongs to God and to them, and it has never once belonged to you.
You have been trying to be the reason. You were only ever asked to be in the room.
You are not carrying nineteen people, and the burden of the result has never been on your shoulders. The written word says the LORD sought and the LORD spared and the LORD decides, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a weight off a person without taking away their place.
What one is actually for
So what does one do, if one is not the reason?
One stands where nobody else is standing. That is not nothing, and it is not a consolation prize either. There is a difference between a family with nobody praying in it and a family with somebody praying in it, and the difference is not that the second one is guaranteed anything. The difference is that there is a place where God is being welcomed in that house, out loud, on purpose, and that place is you.
You are not a lever. You are a doorway. And a doorway does not have to be large. It has to be open.
You are open, and God has never needed a wide door to come through. Ezekiel 22:30 has God searching for one standing person rather than a strong one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a small ordinary morning prayer into a place He is welcome.
So here is what I believe is being said over somebody tonight.
You are not too few, and God has never once looked at you and wished there were more of you. I am not warming you up. Ezekiel 22:30 has the Lord Himself searching for a single person to stand, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my voice who takes that out of a warning and puts it where it belongs, which is in the hands of the one already standing.
And this, which is the release I came for:
You are free of the outcome, and it was never given to you to carry. The word says the LORD sought and the LORD spares, which puts the deciding in His hands and not in yours, and the Spirit of God is the one who can lift that off a person without taking their place away from them.
Put the arithmetic down. You were never the fair fight. You were the open door, and one open door is the exact number He came looking for.
Declare this over yourself
- Arithmetic that says one is too few, you are not the measure here. Ezekiel 22:30 says He sought for a man, singular, so by the Holy Spirit you do not get to size me in the name of Jesus.
- Fear that this family is on my shoulders, you have no claim on me. The word says the LORD sought and the LORD spares, and by the Holy Spirit I am done carrying an outcome that was never handed to me.
- Father, You went looking for one and one is what I am. Your word says stand in the gap before me, so by Your Spirit I stand in this house today, and I leave the rest with You.
Ezekiel 22:30
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