I Want To Force Something To Grow Inside

You have got three things going on the sill in January.

Not because you wanted those particular things. You wanted something green in the house, and these were what could be persuaded to do it at this time of year, and one of them is in a jar of water on a radiator which tells you most of what you need to know about how hard you are working at this.

And it is working. There is green in the house.

So let me ask the question that this row exists to ask.

What would it be like to have one month with nothing growing anywhere?

You are allowed a season with nothing in it, and a month with nothing growing has never once been a month that needed covering.

Because that is the thing that has not happened in several years, and I suspect the reason it has not happened is not that it would be dull.

It is that you have never found out. The gap has been bridged every single year, promptly, before it opened, and so the question of what is actually in an empty month has stayed permanently unanswered.

And a thing bridged every year for a decade starts to look like a thing that must be bridged, though nobody has ever tested it.

For, lo, the winter is past

There is a line in the Song of Solomon that announces the end of winter, and the announcement is the part to look at.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come. (Song of Solomon 2:11 and 12, King James Version)

For, lo, the winter is past.

Now, notice that this is an announcement of something that has happened. Past tense. The winter has ended and the announcement follows the ending.

It is not said in January. Nobody in that passage says the winter is nearly past, or announces it early to make the remainder more bearable.

You are looking at an announcement that waited for its own moment, and a declaration about winter has never once been made in that passage before the winter was actually over. Song of Solomon 2:11 speaks in the past tense about a thing that has finished, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman with three things going on a sill in January.

And notice that the announcement is worth making at all.

The reason the sentence has any force is that the winter was real and had a duration and was not covered over while it was happening. Somebody stood in the whole of it. That is what makes the announcement mean something when it comes.

You are able to let a season be long enough to be worth the ending of, and a winter that was bridged has never once produced the sentence in that verse. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives an ending that carries weight, and the written word makes the announcement only after the thing it announces is finished.

And there is the word lo, which is a word for pointing at something.

It assumes somebody who has been in the winter and needs the change pointed out to them. It is spoken to a person who has been in it long enough to be surprised.

You are able to be surprised by a thing you did not manufacture, and a change pointed out to somebody has never once been a change that person arranged for themselves. The Spirit of God is the one doing the pointing, and the word says lo, which is addressed to somebody who was not expecting it yet.

What the bridging costs

Let me be practical about what the arrangement actually does, because it is not neutral.

It works. I want to be fair about that first. There is green in the house in January and that is a real thing and it is pleasant.

What it costs is the spring.

Because if something has been growing in your house continuously for eleven years, then nothing ever begins. There is no moment when the year turns, because the year has been artificially continuous, and the sentence in that verse has no grip on somebody for whom the winter was never allowed to be a winter.

You are paying for a mild January with a spring that has never once been able to arrive as an event. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a turning that can actually be felt, and Song of Solomon 2:11 announces something to somebody who had been in the other thing.

And there is a second cost that I think is the larger one.

It has never once been found out whether it is bearable.

An empty month, with nothing to tend, is a thing a great many people are afraid of without ever having tested. And after ten years of covering it, the fear is entirely untested and has grown in the dark, and it now feels like a fact about what you can bear.

You are carrying an untested fear, and a thing avoided for ten years has never once had a chance to be found manageable. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a month that nobody arranged, and the written word has a winter that ran its length before anything was said about its ending.

Let one month go by

So here is the assignment, and it is a month and it is a subtraction.

Let one month go by without starting anything indoors.

One. Not the whole winter. One month, chosen by you, in which nothing gets put in water or soil in the house.

You are able to leave one month uncovered, and thirty days with nothing growing has never once been thirty days that a person could not stand. Song of Solomon 2:11 lets a winter run its full course before announcing anything, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that kitchen while a woman does not start something.

And keep what is already going. This is not an instruction to throw anything out, and throwing things out would make this dramatic and it is not dramatic.

Simply do not start the next one. When the thing on the radiator finishes, let it finish, and do not replace it.

You are able to stop adding rather than start removing, and not beginning something has never once been the same act as ending something. The Holy Spirit is the one present in a decision not to act, and the word announces the end of a season rather than shortening it.

And notice what it is like. That is the actual assignment underneath the assignment. Notice, in that month, what an empty windowsill in your house is like, since you do not currently know.