I Have Started Three Times And Stopped

Three times.

The first one was a Saturday in spring and you got about four hours in before it rained, and you never went back out that week, and then it was three weeks, and then it was the whole summer.

The second one was more organized. You had a plan that time. You did two evenings and then a work thing happened and the plan is still on the side in the kitchen somewhere.

The third one you would rather not talk about, because that one lasted about forty minutes.

And now there is a fourth start available and you cannot make yourself take it, and you have decided that means something about your character.

You are allowed a fourth beginning, and three that stopped have never once used up what a person is permitted.

Let me say the thing you have not said, because I think it is the actual obstacle and it is not laziness.

You are not frightened of the work. You did four hours in the rain once. You are frightened of stopping again.

Because a fourth beginning that stops is much worse than three, arithmetically and in every other way. It confirms something. Three could still be circumstances, rain and work and a bad week. Four starts to look like a pattern with your name on it.

So not starting is currently protecting you from that, and it is doing quite a good job, and that is why the ground has been like that since spring.

The day of small things

There is a question in Zechariah aimed at exactly the instinct that has been running here.

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. (Zechariah 4:10, King James Version)

Who hath despised the day of small things.

Now, the setting matters. This is said to people rebuilding a temple, and the foundation they had laid was so much less than the old one that some of them wept when they saw it. There was a real and visible gap between what they were doing and what it was supposed to be.

And into that, God asks who despised the day of small things.

You are being asked a question rather than handed an instruction, and Scripture has never once required a beginning to look adequate before it counted as one. Zechariah 4:10 puts the question to people who were embarrassed by the size of what they had started, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that question land on a woman looking at a bed she has begun three times.

And notice what the day of small things is being contrasted with. It is not being contrasted with failure. It is being contrasted with the large version, the impressive version, the one that would have looked like a proper start.

The verse is not defending people who did nothing. It is defending people who did something small and felt foolish about the size of it.

You are exactly the person that question was asked to protect, and a small beginning has never once been despised by the one who asked it. The Holy Spirit is the one who values a thing by something other than its dimensions, and the written word puts the question in God's own mouth rather than leaving it to be argued.

And the second half is worth having too. They shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. A plummet is a plumb line, the small tool a builder uses to check that one thing is straight.

The picture of the good outcome is not a finished temple. It is a man holding a small tool, working.

You are being shown a hand with one small tool in it as the picture of a thing going well, and a completed job has never once been what that verse held up as the good sight. The Spirit of God is the one who calls a person at work the outcome, and the word puts a plumb line rather than a building in the frame.

Make it small enough to finish

Let me be practical, because the practical part is the whole answer here.

Your three beginnings all failed the same way, and it was not weather and it was not work.

They were all too big to finish in one sitting.

You are looking at three attempts that shared one design fault, and a beginning sized past a single afternoon has never once been a fair test of the person starting it. Zechariah 4:10 honors the small day precisely because a small day can be completed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman which part actually broke.

Four hours is not a beginning, it is a project, and a project has to be resumed. And resuming is the thing that did not happen, three times, and resuming is where the confidence went.

So stop designing beginnings that require resuming.

You have been failing at the resuming rather than at the starting, and three unfinished attempts have never once said anything about a person's ability to begin. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a person which part actually broke, and Zechariah 4:10 honors the small thing precisely because the small thing can be completed.

Here is the design I want instead. One square foot.

Not one bed. Not one corner. One square foot of ground, cleared, and then you stop.

And I mean stop. Stop while you still have energy and while it is going well and while everything in you wants to do the next square foot. That is not a suggestion, it is the mechanism.

You are able to do a thing small enough that stopping is part of it, and an ending planned in advance has never once been the same as giving up. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a small completed thing, and the written word asks who despised the day of small things without waiting for it to become a large one.

Because what you need is not more ground cleared. What you need is one experience of starting this bed and finishing what you started, and a square foot is the only size at which that is available to you today.

One square foot, then inside

So here is the assignment and the second half is the important half.

Clear one square foot of it, and then stop and go inside.

Roughly a square foot. Do not measure it. About the size of a seat cushion, at the edge where it is easiest, not in the middle where the worst of it is.

You are permitted to start at the easy edge, and a beginning has never once been obliged to happen at the hardest point of a thing. Zechariah 4:10 asks who despised the day of small things, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there with a woman clearing a patch the size of a cushion.

Then stop. Even if it is going well. Especially if it is going well.

Put the tools down and go inside and do something else, and let there be one square foot of that bed that is done and a woman who started something and finished it on the same afternoon.

You are ending a three year run of unresumed beginnings with one completed square, and a small finished thing has never once been worth less than a large unfinished one. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a person walking away on purpose, and the word holds up a hand with a plumb line in it as the picture of things going well.

And do not look at the rest of the bed on your way in. That is not today's business and looking at it is how the square foot gets turned back into a project.