I Probably Just Saw Her Story

It takes about a second and a half, and she has got very good at it.

Somebody comes to mind. A girl she was close to two years ago and is not really any more, not because anything happened, just because that is what happens.

And before the thought has finished arriving, the explanation is already there: I probably saw her story earlier and did not notice.

That is it. Done. Filed.

And the thing is, it is a good explanation. It might well be true. She is on her phone a great deal, like everybody her age, and she has read enough to know that you absorb things without registering them and that your brain will hand them back to you later dressed up as an original thought.

She is not being stupid. She is being modern and slightly clever, and it takes a second and a half, and it happens perhaps four times a week.

She noticed the pattern about a month ago and has been watching it since, which is how she can tell you it is four times a week.

And what she has noticed, and what has been quietly bothering her, is that the explanation never changes what she does. She thinks of somebody. She explains it. She does nothing. Whether the explanation is right or wrong, the outcome is identical, every single time.

Which means it is not really an explanation.

It is a door she closes.

And that is you with your phone face down on the table, or you would not still be reading.

Nobody in Scripture recognized it the first three times either

Let me give you a boy who could not tell.

He is young. He is in the temple, asleep, and he hears his name.

And he does what anybody would do, which is get up and go to the old man he lives with, because obviously that is who it was. And the old man says: I did not call you, go back to bed.

And it happens again. And a third time.

And then the text says this, and it is one of the most freeing sentences in the Old Testament for somebody in your position:

Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.1 Samuel 3:7

He did not know. Three times. He got it wrong three times in a row, and it did not disqualify him, and it was not held against him, and the account is written down without one word of criticism of the boy.

You are not expected to be able to identify it, and the not knowing is written into the story as normal. It is written that Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him (1 Samuel 3:7). The Holy Spirit is not standing over a twenty-something requiring correct attribution before anything can happen.

And here is what actually got Samuel there, which was not insight.

Eli told him what to do next time. He did not tell him how to be sure. He gave him one sentence to say, and the boy went back and lay down and waited, and it happened again, and he said the sentence.

That is the whole mechanism. Somebody who did not know, doing the next small thing anyway.

Now let me deal with the second and a half.

You are not required to establish the source before you are allowed to send a message. It is written that we are to encourage one another and build one another up (1 Thessalonians 5:11), and there is no verification step anywhere in it. The Holy Spirit does not need you to win an argument with yourself about your own phone.

And I want to point at the thing you already spotted, because you were right and it is the whole message.

The explanation never changes what you do.

If you knew for certain it was Him, you would message her. If you knew for certain it was an algorithm, you would still be a person who thought about somebody she used to be close to.

You are free to move on it either way, and the outcome does not depend on solving where it came from. It is written that whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17), and that covers a message sent for an ordinary reason. The Holy Spirit is not withholding permission until you can prove authorship.