I Cannot Plan Anything

Somebody asked you about a thing in three weeks and you said you would let them know.

You will not let them know. You both understood that at the time.

And it was not about the money for the thing, not really. It was that three weeks is a long way off and you have no idea what that week looks like, and saying yes to anything has started to feel like making a promise you cannot keep.

So the calendar is empty. And the emptiness feels responsible.

You are allowed a life in an uneven month, and a calendar nobody can guarantee has never once been a calendar that should stay empty.

Let me name what has actually happened, because it happened slowly and nobody notices a slow thing.

It started with one or two sensible declines. Things that genuinely would have been difficult.

Then declining became the default, because the default is whatever a person does when they have not decided, and not deciding always resolves into no.

And now you are eleven months into a life where you have not agreed to anything in advance, and the money has not improved, and the eleven months are gone.

Ye know not what shall be on the morrow

There is a passage in James that is usually preached as a warning against arrogance, and read properly it is a strange kind of comfort for you.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (James 4:14, King James Version)

Ye know not what shall be on the morrow.

That is said to people who were confidently laying out a year's trading plans. And it is not saying their plans were wicked. It is saying they did not have information they thought they had.

You are in a passage where nobody knows what the next month holds, and being uncertain about a week has never once been a condition peculiar to a person with uneven work. James 4:14 says whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put that as a plain fact about everybody rather than as a rebuke to one kind of person.

And here is what makes it useful rather than bleak.

The people being corrected were not told to stop planning. Two verses later they are told what to say instead. If the Lord will, we shall do this, or that.

The answer is not an empty calendar. It is a sentence added to a full one.

You have been given a phrase to add rather than a life to cancel, and a plan held loosely has never once been the same as no plan at all. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody say yes without pretending to know, and it is written in James 4 with the correction being about the wording rather than about the planning.

Certainty was never available

Now let me say the thing that I think will actually change the week, and it is not encouragement, it is a correction of fact.

The assumption running underneath all of it is that other people have certainty and you do not.

The woman who said yes to that thing in three weeks does not know what her three weeks holds either. She could be ill. Her mother could be ill. Her job could go on the Tuesday.

She is not more certain than you. She is simply saying yes with the same amount of information you have.

You are not the only person in the room without a guarantee, and everybody who ever agreed to anything has done it without knowing. The written word says plainly that nobody knows about tomorrow, and the Spirit of God is the one who levels that out so a person stops feeling uniquely disqualified.

And there is a second thing, which is about what a yes actually is.

A yes is not a promise that nothing will change. It never was. It is a statement of present intention, and everybody in the world has always understood it that way.

If the week goes wrong, you tell them, and they say no problem, because that is what people say, because they have all done it themselves.

You are able to say yes to something and change it later, and a plan that had to be altered has never once been a promise broken. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a false weight off an ordinary word, and James 4:14 puts everybody in the same condition of not knowing.

Name what came in, and say one yes

So the assignment, and there are two halves, and the first one is the one written on this site.

Name out loud what came in this week, however small, and thank God for it by name.

Out loud. The actual pieces, not a total. Say each one and then say thank You for it, by name, one at a time.

You are able to say a list out loud this week, and naming the pieces has never once done what counting a total does. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in something said out loud in a kitchen, and the written word puts everybody in the same honest position about tomorrow.

And the second half, which is yours specifically. Say yes to one thing this month.

One. Something in two or three weeks that costs little or nothing. A meal at somebody's house. A walk. The thing at the hall.

And when you say yes, add the sentence James gives you. I would love to, if nothing goes sideways.

You are able to say one yes with one honest condition on it, and a qualified agreement has never once been the same as a refusal. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that sentence available, and it is written in James 4 that the correction was to the wording rather than to the planning.