I Plan All Through The Empty Months

You have three plans for the spring and it is February.

One is a full plan, drawn out, with the beds on it. One is a reserve plan for if the weather goes the way it went two years ago. And one is a small ambitious one that you have not admitted to.

And this is what you do every winter.

Now, I want to be careful in what follows, because there is nothing wrong with planning a garden and I am not going to tell you to stop.

What I want to ask about is a different thing, and it is this: when were you last in the month you were actually in?

You are allowed to be in February, and a plan for April has never once been the same as living in one.

Because here is what I suspect, and you will know whether it is true.

The planning is not preparation for the spring. It is a way of not being in the winter.

Winter is empty, and empty is uncomfortable, and planning converts the empty months into busy ones without anything actually happening in them. It is an occupation that fills the time and produces nothing that could not have been produced in one afternoon in March.

A man's heart deviseth his way

There is a proverb about planning that is more generous than people expect, and the generosity is in the first half.

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. (Proverbs 16:9, King James Version)

A man's heart deviseth his way.

Now, notice that the planning is simply allowed. It is not rebuked. The proverb does not say a man's heart foolishly deviseth, or that he ought to leave it alone.

Devising is stated as what people do, without any correction attached.

You are not being told off for making plans, and Scripture has never once treated the devising itself as the fault. Proverbs 16:9 states the planning plainly before it says anything else, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a familiar proverb from arriving as a rebuke.

And then the second half, which is where the weight goes. But the LORD directeth his steps.

Steps. Not plans. The proverb does not say God directs the plan or amends it or replaces it with a better one. It puts God at the level of the steps, which is where a person actually is, which is today.

You are being told where God is operating, and it has never once been at the level of a plan for April. The Holy Spirit is the one who directs steps rather than schemes, and the written word puts the divine activity at the smallest unit of movement rather than at the largest.

And that is the thing that speaks to a woman with three plans in February.

The plans are allowed. But the place where anything is actually happening, according to that proverb, is the step being taken today, in the month that is actually here.

You are able to have plans and to live somewhere else entirely, and a day spent in April has never once been a day that anybody got the use of. The Spirit of God is the one who is at work in the steps, and the word locates Him there rather than in the devising.

The winter is not a waiting room

Let me say the thing that this whole row exists for, because it is easy to miss and it is the point.

February is not an anteroom to April.

The empty months are not a corridor between two rooms. They are months. They have weather in them and light that does particular things and mornings that are entirely their own, and they are not a delay before the real part of the year begins.

You are standing in months that have never once been a corridor to anywhere, and a fallow season has never been the waiting area for a growing one. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person the month they are actually in, and Proverbs 16:9 puts the directing in the step rather than in the destination.

And here is what the planning costs, and it is not a small bill.

Four months a year. Every year. Times however many years.

If a person spends every winter in the spring, they do not lose the winter once. They lose it repeatedly, for as long as the habit runs, and at the end of it there will have been a great many Februaries that nobody was present for.

You are able to stop spending one third of every year somewhere else, and a season lived in advance has never once been a season anybody actually had. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the month under a person's feet, and the written word makes no mention anywhere of a season that exists to be got through.

Look at it without planning

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

Go out and look at the bare ground once without planning anything.

Stand at the edge of the beds. Look at them as they are, in February, with nothing in them.

You are able to look at something without immediately improving it, and a minute spent looking at bare ground has never once been a minute that produced nothing. Proverbs 16:9 puts the directing in the steps rather than in the schemes, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a woman looks at empty beds.

And the without planning is the exercise. Everything else is just going outside.

Within about fifteen seconds your mind will start placing things. That corner would take the tall ones. The near bed did badly last year. It happens automatically and it will not feel like planning, it will feel like looking.

When it starts, come back to what is actually in front of you. Bare soil. The color it is in February, which is not the color it is in June. Whatever is out there now.

You are able to come back to what is actually present, and a mind that goes forward has never once meant a person could not return it to today. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the returning, and the word directs a person's steps, which are always taken in the month they are standing in.

And leave the notebook inside. That is not symbolic, it is practical, because a notebook in a pocket is a plan waiting to be written.