The Box Has Not Been Opened

It is in the garage, under the bench, and it has not been opened in nine years.

You know exactly where it is. You moved it twice. You cleaned around it. When you needed a screwdriver last spring you bought one rather than open it, and you have never once said out loud to anybody why.

Here is what is actually in there, and it is not tools.

If you open it, you find out what he taught you. And the answer might be nothing. It might be a box full of objects with names you do not know, for jobs you cannot do, from a man who was in the same house as you for eighteen years and never handed you one of them.

So the lid stays down, and the question stays unanswered, and unanswered is easier than the wrong answer.

Let me put this down before anything else. Not knowing how is not a character flaw. And whatever is or is not in that box, it is not a report on you, and it is not even necessarily a report on him.

He took up the mantle that fell

There is a moment in Second Kings where a man picks up something that belonged to somebody who has gone.

He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan. (2 Kings 2:13, King James Version)

Elisha had just watched the man he followed go, and what is left on the ground is a coat.

And look at what he does with it. He picks it up. He does not build a case around it or hang it somewhere. He takes it up and walks back and uses it at the river, and the whole story turns on that one physical act.

You have something on the ground that was left behind, and picking a thing up has never once required knowing in advance what it is going to mean. Second Kings 2:13 has a man take up a mantle and immediately go and use it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that read as an invitation rather than as a test.

And notice what he did not have. He did not have the man. He had a coat and a river and no instructions, and he had watched somebody use it once.

You are holding the same combination Elisha had, and a set of objects with no instructions attached has never once been the same as nothing. The Spirit of God is the one who is present when somebody picks up what was left, and it is written in Second Kings that the taking up came before anything else happened at all.

What the box is actually holding

Here is what has been keeping that lid down, and it is worth naming precisely.

It is not the tools. It is a question about whether anything was ever given, and the box is the last place that question can still be answered either way.

While it is shut, both answers are live. He might have left you something. He might have left you nothing. And a live question, however uncomfortable, is easier to carry than a settled one that came out badly.

That is not weakness. That is a reasonable thing for a person to do with something they cannot afford to find out.

You have been protecting a question rather than avoiding a box, and keeping something unanswered has never once meant a man was afraid of tools. It is written in Second Kings 2:13 that the mantle was taken up before anybody knew what would happen at the river, and the Holy Spirit is the one who goes with a man to a lid he has not lifted in nine years.

And here is the thing I would say about the answer, whichever it turns out to be.

If it is a box of things you know how to use, that is a gift and it has been sitting in a garage for nine years unopened. If it is a box of things you do not recognize, then it is a box of things to learn about, at fifty two, with a phone in your hand, and every one of them was his and is now yours.

Neither of those is nothing. There is no version of opening that box where you come out with less than you went in with.

Now the limit, and I say it here rather than in a footer. If there is anything in there for work nobody should do at home, leave it in the box. Never a gas appliance, never the breaker panel, never mains wiring, never a wall holding the building up, never a roof. Call a licensed professional and pay them properly, and let some of his tools simply be objects that belonged to him.

You are entirely allowed to keep a tool without using it, and leaving something in the box has never once been a failure to receive what a man left. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person peace about that, and Scripture puts the value on the taking up rather than on knowing what everything is for.

Open it and hold one

So here is the ask, and it stops well short of a job.

Open the box tonight, take out one tool, and hold it.

That is the whole assignment. Lift the lid. Reach in. Take out one thing, whatever your hand lands on, and hold it for a minute, and then either put it back or leave it on the bench.

You are able to lift a lid and hold one object for a minute, and nine years of a closed box has never once made the lid heavier than it actually is. The Spirit of God is the one who goes ahead of a man into something he has been circling for years, and Second Kings 2:13 puts the taking up of what was left before anything else happens.

Do not sort them. Do not inventory them. Do not decide anything about what it means. One tool, held, for a minute.

And if you know what it is, say so out loud. And if you do not, say that out loud too, because both of those sentences are fine and both of them are just information.

You have permission to find out tonight what is actually in there, and one tool in your hand has never once been able to say anything about the son who is holding it. It is written in Second Kings that a man took up a coat and went back to a river with it, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in that garage with you.