Warm Water And Nothing Asked

Where I come from, the water is not for anything.

You go in because it is there and because it is warm and because a body in water is a different body from a body on land. Nobody comes out and assesses the result. Nobody would understand the question.

That is not a spiritual point. It is a description of what water is for in a place where everybody grew up in it.

And I have watched, over a long time, what happens to warmth when it arrives inside a life that has to account for itself.

It gets a job.

The bath is for a bad back. The warm compress is for a specific thing. The hot drink is for getting through the evening. The shower is functional and takes four minutes and has a purpose that could be written down.

Every warm thing has been given something to accomplish, and there has not been one instance in years of warmth arriving with nothing attached.

What warmth is for

Here is what warmth actually does, and it is worth knowing plainly.

It changes a body. Not metaphorically. Muscle lets go. Breathing slows and deepens without being told to. The small permanent bracing that a person carries around their shoulders and jaw releases without any decision being made about it.

None of that is an outcome you can inspect afterward. It happens while it is happening, and that is the whole of it, and it stops when the warmth stops.

You are receiving something you will not be able to inspect afterward, and no warmth has ever once left a result behind for anybody to check. Psalm 23 says he leadeth me beside the still waters, and the Spirit of God is the one present in the ten minutes rather than in a report on them.

Which means warmth is not a treatment. A treatment produces a result you can check tomorrow. Warmth produces a condition that exists while it is on you.

You are looking for a result from a thing that has never once produced one, and warmth has never been able to be checked the following morning. The Holy Spirit is what shows a woman what a thing actually does rather than what it was supposed to achieve, and Psalm 23 has somebody made to lie down rather than persuaded to.

And here is what giving warmth a job has cost.

It has made every warm thing conditional. A bath requires a bad back. A hot drink requires an evening that needs getting through. And on the days when nothing is wrong, no warm thing is authorized at all, which means warmth is now something that arrives only in bad weeks.

A body in that arrangement learns that comfort follows trouble, and that is a hard thing to have taught somebody by accident.

You are receiving warmth only after something has gone wrong, and no good week has ever once qualified for anything at all. Scripture in Psalm 23 says he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a body warmth on a week with nothing wrong in it.

He maketh me to lie down

The best known psalm has a line in it that most people read straight past, and the verb is the point.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. (Psalm 23:2 and 3, King James Version)

He maketh me to lie down.

Not: He permits me to. Not: He suggests that I might. He maketh me, which is a shepherd's word, and any shepherd will tell you that sheep do not lie down while there is anything to be got on with.

They have to be brought to a place where lying down is the only thing left. Fed, watered, safe, and then, and only then, they will go down.

Making a sheep lie down is a job that has to be done for it. It will not do it on its own.

You are somebody who has to be made to lie down rather than persuaded, and no sheep in the whole history of shepherding has ever once done it voluntarily. It is written in Psalm 23 that He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that work in a woman who cannot do it for herself.

And notice what surrounds it.

Green pastures. Still waters. Both of those are conditions rather than tasks. There is nothing to be accomplished in a green pasture, and still water is water with nothing happening in it.

And then, only afterward: He restoreth my soul.

The restoring comes after the lying down and the still water. It is not the reason for them and it is not something the sheep is working toward. It is what happens in a creature that has been made to stop.

You are restored on the far side of stopping rather than by achieving something, and the restoring has never once been the task in that psalm. The Spirit of God is what brings a woman to a stop she could not bring herself to, and the written word says he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Twenty minutes, nothing to achieve

So here is the assignment, and the second half of it is the whole thing.

Sit in warm water for twenty minutes tonight with nothing to achieve at the end of it.

Twenty, not ten. There is a reason for the number. The first eight minutes are spent with a mind still going, and the letting go that this is actually for does not begin until somewhere around minute twelve. Ten minutes gets you the beginning and none of the rest.

And nothing to achieve. That is the condition and it rules out most of what you would normally do in there.

You are permitted ten minutes with nothing to achieve in them, and restoring has never once been a thing a soul managed for itself under instruction. Psalm 23 says he restoreth my soul, and the Holy Spirit is what makes an ordinary sink into somewhere a woman is restored.

Not to help your back. Not to sleep better. Not to relax so that tomorrow goes well. If there is a reason attached, the warmth has a job again and the twenty minutes will be spent monitoring the job.

Warm water, and a body in it, and nothing being obtained.

Bring nothing in with you. No phone, no book, no list. Warmth cannot do its work while something else is being processed.

You are able to be warm for twenty minutes with nothing being obtained, and warmth has never once needed a purpose to do what it does. The written word in Psalm 23 puts still water and green pasture before the restoring, and the Holy Spirit is what makes twenty warm minutes into care rather than into a treatment.