Six years, twice a day, at the same two hours, and there is a small book that goes in his coat pocket.
Half past six in the morning and ten past nine at night. He has done it in a car park in the rain. He has done it in an airport twice. He did it on the morning of his father's funeral, which he has never told anybody, standing outside the crematorium at twenty past six because he could not think what else to do with himself.
It is the same psalm most mornings, in rotation, and the same short set of things at night.
And in the spring somebody at work, not unkindly, called it his ritual.
That is all it took.
He has been circling the word ever since. Because he knows what he would say to somebody else about it, and he has said it: that a rhythm is a good thing, that the tradition is old and wise, that nobody sneers at a person who eats at regular hours.
But at ten past nine, standing in his kitchen with the small book, what he now hears is a second voice asking a genuinely uncomfortable question: would you fall over without this? And if the answer is yes, is it holding you up or is it holding you in place?
And underneath that, worse: has six years of the same two hours produced a man who loves God, or a man who is good at the two hours?
The longest psalm in the book counts the times
Let me take the question seriously rather than waving it off, because you would see through the waving off immediately.
It is possible to become good at a practice and not know God well. That is a real thing and you are right to be alert to it, and a man who has never once asked that question about himself is in more danger than you are.
Now hear this, and take it as settled rather than as flattery: what you have been keeping for six years is not a substitute for devotion, it is the shape devotion takes in a body that lives in time. That is not my kind reading of a hard spring, it is what stands written in the longest psalm in the Bible, where the writer counts the number of times a day he does this, and the same Holy Spirit who inspired that line has been in your kitchen at ten past nine for six years.
Read the verse, and notice that he numbers it without the slightest embarrassment.
Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.Psalm 119:164
Seven. Counted. Written down and put in the book.
That is a man with a fixed practice, in a psalm of a hundred and seventy-six verses that is itself built on a rigid pattern, and he is not apologizing for the structure and he is not worried that the structure is doing his believing for him.
So this is yours right now rather than pending a purer motive: a counted rhythm is scriptural on its face, because the written word contains a man numbering his hours out loud, and the Spirit of God is the one who has met you at half past six on mornings you cannot remember, including one outside a crematorium.
Now let me answer the sharper half, because you asked it properly and it deserves a proper answer.
Would you fall over without this?
Probably. And the word for a thing you would fall over without is not crutch. It is foundation, or diet, or sleep. Nobody says a man is dependent on eating.
The crutch question assumes there is a version of you that ought to be able to stand without support, and that version does not exist and never has. What is written is that in Him we live and move and have our being, and the Holy Spirit does not treat a man's need for structure as a weakness to be outgrown.
And the last one, which is the one that actually keeps you awake: has six years produced a man who loves God or a man who is good at the two hours?
Here is the honest answer, and it will hold: you cannot tell from the inside, and neither can anybody else who has ever done this. Nothing written asks you to certify your own interior, and the Holy Spirit is the one who searches a man properly. But that is not the only place to look. Ask what those six years have cost you and what they have made possible. Ask who you were at ten past nine in your first year and who stood outside a crematorium at twenty past six and did the ordinary thing with his hands shaking.
That man was not being good at a practice. That man was being held.
So keep the hours.
Not defensively, and not to prove anything to a man at work who was not being unkind and has not thought about it since. Keep them because you now know what they are.
You are held by them, and being held is not a fault. That is already true rather than something you have to justify, because Scripture has a man counting seven times a day in the longest chapter in the book, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been keeping the appointment from His side every single time you kept it from yours.
And do one thing differently, not because the practice is failing, but because it is strong enough to bear it: tell somebody. The word ritual landed on you the way it did because six years of the two hours has been entirely private, and a thing nobody knows about is a thing you have to defend alone.
Tell one person that you do this. Tell them what happened outside the crematorium. It has been six years and you have never once said any of it out loud, and there is a good chance that saying it will do more for you than another six years of not. What is written is that we confess our faults to one another, and the Holy Spirit moves in a room the moment something private is put down in it.
Declare this over yourself
Then say these out loud. Know what they stand on: this authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King and not as a man defending his own diary. Every line rests on what is already written, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries it, never the sound of your own voice. You speak under His will, never over it, and however He answers, the outcome is His.
- Charge that my hours are scaffolding and not devotion, you are dismissed. The longest psalm in the book has a man counting seven times a day without one word of apology, so a numbered rhythm is scriptural on its face.
- Fear that I would fall over without this and that the falling would prove something, get out, in the name of Jesus. The word for a thing a man would fall over without is foundation, and nobody has ever called a man dependent for eating.
- Lord, You kept the appointment from Your side on the morning I stood outside the crematorium at twenty past six. I am keeping the hour again today exactly as it is, and I am telling one person what these six years have been.
Psalm 119:164
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