One Sentence Over The Bench

He has been meaning to do it for eleven years.

Not a vague intention. A specific one. At some point he is going to properly hand his work over to God. Sit down with it, think it through, get it right, mean it all the way down, and give it.

And he has not done it, because every time the moment comes up it is the wrong size.

Not on a Tuesday when he is behind. Not in the middle of a bad patch, because that would look like bargaining. Not straight after something went well, because that would be riding a feeling. Not while he is still unsure whether he is even in the right line of work, because you would want that settled first.

So it waits. It has waited through a house move, two changes of employer, the year his father was ill, and about two and a half thousand working mornings.

If you asked him he would say he is not putting it off. He would say he is waiting to do it properly, and he would believe that, and he would be able to tell you three good reasons why now is not it.

Here is what is actually happening. He has decided in advance that the offering has to be a certain size, and he has never had a moment that big, and he never will, because moments that big are rare and a working life is mostly Tuesdays.

You may have your own eleven years. Something you have genuinely meant to give God, and have not, because you were waiting for an occasion that would be worthy of it, and the occasion has never arrived and the meaning it has cost you is enormous.

They started on an ordinary morning

Here is a verse about the beginning of the most significant piece of making in the Old Testament, and I want you to notice how small the sentence is.

And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it.Exodus 36:2

Read the end of it. To come unto the work to do it.

That is it. That is the whole account of how they began. No ceremony is described. No moment is staged. Their hearts stirred them, they came to the work, and they did it. The most carefully recorded building project in Scripture starts with people turning up.

I love that. I want to shout about it, honestly, and I am going to keep my voice down because you are tired and this is not a stage.

You are able to begin at the size the day actually is, and God has never once asked for a bigger moment than that. Exodus 36:2 has them coming to the work and doing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary morning the place a thing gets given.

Think about what a large offering would require of you. It would require the right feeling, a clear head, no distractions, a settled mind about the whole shape of your life, and about forty uninterrupted minutes. You have been waiting for all six of those to happen on the same morning for eleven years.

Meanwhile the thing God actually asked for takes about four seconds and can be done badly.

You have permission to do this badly, this morning, in the state you are in. The written word says their hearts stirred them and they came to the work, with no ceremony recorded anywhere in the sentence, and the Holy Spirit does not require a better version of you to be present first.

There is an honest half. Doing it small does not make it feel enormous. You will very likely say your sentence and feel nothing at all, and go and do the day, and wonder whether it counted. That is normal and it is not a failure. Feeling was never the evidence.

And this is the part only you can do, and it is deliberately tiny so that it can actually happen. One sentence. Out loud. Over the work. Today, not on the right day.