I Let The Whole Thing Go Two Summers Ago

You opened the gate in April and shut it again.

That is the part you have not told anybody. You went out there, at the start of the second spring, with every intention, and you got the gate open and you stood in it for a while and then you closed it and went back in the house.

And you have not been out since.

Two summers now. The path has gone. The bed by the wall is not a bed any more, it is a shape under grass. And the thing that was true in April is more true now, which is that going out there means facing the size of it.

You are allowed to go back to it, and two summers have never once shut a door on anybody.

Let me say what I think happened at that gate, because I do not think it was a failure of will.

You did the arithmetic. Standing there, without meaning to, you added it up: the clearing, the digging, the hauling, the number of days, and the answer came back enormous. And a man who has just been handed an enormous number does not begin. He closes the gate.

The problem was never your resolve. It was that the whole thing arrived at once, at full size, and nobody can start something that arrives at full size.

The people had a mind to work

There is a line in Nehemiah about rebuilding a wall, and the detail in it is the useful part.

So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work. (Nehemiah 4:6, King James Version)

Unto the half thereof.

Now, that is a strange thing to record. The wall is not finished at this point in the story. It is at half height. And the writer stops and puts it down as a fact worth noting.

You are looking at a verse that thought half a wall was worth writing down, and an unfinished thing has never once been beneath the notice of Scripture. Nehemiah 4:6 records the halfway point as an achievement in its own right, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a half built wall land on a man who has been waiting to be able to do the whole of something.

And then the reason given, which is the whole of it. For the people had a mind to work.

Not because they had the resources. Not because conditions were favorable, and they were not, because a few verses either side of this the people are being threatened and are building with one hand while holding a weapon in the other.

The reason the wall got to half height is that the people had a mind to work.

You are being told that the thing which moved a wall was a disposition rather than a circumstance, and a mind to work has never once required the conditions to be right first. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a man a mind to work when the arithmetic says otherwise, and the written word puts the reason on the disposition and not on the resources.

And there is one more thing in that verse and it is in the first three words. So built we.

The writer includes himself. Nehemiah is not supervising this from a distance with a plan. He is in it, and the account is written from inside the work rather than from above it.

You are not being managed by somebody standing outside the job, and God has never once directed a piece of work from a distance in that book. The Spirit of God is the one who is in the work rather than over it, and the word says so built we, which puts the writer down among the stones.

The gate was not the problem

Let me deal with what happened in April, because I think it has been filed wrongly.

You did not fail out there. You correctly assessed an impossible task and declined it.

That is not weakness, it is judgment, and the judgment was right. What stood in that gateway genuinely could not be done, not by one man of your age in the time available, and closing the gate was the sane response to the question being asked.

The trouble is only that it was the wrong question.

You were answering a question that had never once needed to be asked, and a man declining an impossible job has never once been a man refusing to work. The Holy Spirit is the one who changes the question rather than demanding more from the man, and Nehemiah 4:6 is content to record a wall at half its height.

Here is the question that was not being asked in that gateway.

Not: can I restore this garden. That one is unanswerable and it will close the gate every time.

But: can I clear one square foot of it this evening. That one has an answer, and the answer is obviously yes, and the answer does not change on a wet Tuesday or a bad week.

You are able to answer the smaller question every single time it is asked, and one square foot has never once depended on a man's circumstances being favorable. The Spirit of God is the one who reduces a thing to the size a man is actually standing in front of, and the written word honors half a wall without waiting for the whole.

One square foot, and then stop

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

Clear one square foot of it. Only one. Then stop and go inside.

About the size of a seat cushion. Nearest the gate, where it is easiest, not out in the middle where the worst of it is.

You are permitted to begin at the easiest point, and a start has never once been required to happen at the hardest part of a thing. Nehemiah 4:6 puts the reason on a mind to work rather than on where anybody began, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there with a man crouched down by a gate.

And then stop, and this is not a suggestion.

Stop while there is plenty left in you. Stop while it is going well. Stop at a point where every instinct says to keep going, because the instinct to keep going is exactly the instinct that produced the arithmetic in April.

If you do two hours tonight, you will have proved that it takes two hours, and then it will need two hours next time, and you do not have those reliably, and the gate will close again.

You are able to end a session on purpose while it is going well, and stopping early has never once been the same thing as stopping. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who puts something down deliberately, and the word records a wall at half height as a thing worth writing down.

One square foot, and the gate stays open, and you come back out on Thursday.