One Man Sent To One House

He has prayed over that street for six years and I do not say that lightly.

He has walked it. Both sides. In the rain more than once. He has a way of doing it that is not showy and would not be noticed by anybody watching, and he has done it faithfully since the year his mother died.

He knows which house had the ambulance twice. He knows where the shouting comes from. He knows which windows are dark at night and which ones are never dark at all.

And he has never knocked on a single door on it.

Six years. Not one door.

If you asked him he would say something quite reasonable about not wanting to be that kind of person. The kind who turns up on a doorstep with an agenda, who makes people uncomfortable in their own homes, who gives everybody a reason to be wary of the whole street's Christians.

He is right about that person. That person exists and is a nuisance.

But he has used a real danger to cover a real absence, and he knows it, because in six years he has also never once brought anybody anything, or asked anybody anything, or been inside any of those houses for any reason at all.

There is one house in particular. He knows the number. He has prayed for that number more than any other on the street.

So let me ask you.

Which single address on the street you pray for have you never approached?

God gave him a street and a house and a name

There is a man in Damascus called Ananias who appears in about eleven verses and then disappears from Scripture forever, and I love him.

He is not an apostle. There is no letter from him. He is a disciple in a city, and God speaks to him, and the instruction he receives is one of the most specific in the whole Bible.

Go to the street called Straight. Go to the house of Judas. Ask for a man from Tarsus called Saul.

A street, a house, and a name.

And Ananias argues. Plainly, out loud, and with excellent reasons: Lord, I have heard about this man, and about what he has done, and he is here with authority to arrest people like me.

Every word of that is true. He is not being faithless. He is being accurate.

And then he goes.

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.Acts 9:17

Read the first word he says inside that house. Not a caution and not a preamble. You are being sent with a word like that in your mouth, my friend, and the Holy Spirit went up that path before Ananias did.

Brother Saul.

That is the first word out of his mouth in that house. Not an accusation, not a caution, not a careful preamble. The man who had every reason to be afraid opens with the word for family.

Hear where you stand, six years into a street.

You are not a man doing the wrong thing. Scripture takes a frightened disciple with good arguments and sends him to one address, and the Spirit has never once been content to work at the level of a map.

And I want to be exact, my friend, because you deserve exactness rather than a nudge.

Everything you said about the doorstep nuisance is correct. I would not send anybody to be that.

But look at what Ananias was actually sent to do. He was not sent to argue with a stranger. He went to a specific house where a specific person was in a specific trouble, and he put his hands on him and called him brother.

That is not doorstep evangelism. That is a visit.

The word says power comes so that we will be witnesses, and every witness in that chapter has an address attached to him.

And you are not a man doing the wrong thing. Acts 9 takes a frightened disciple with accurate objections and sends him to one street and one house and one name, and the Spirit has never been content to work at the level of a map.