I Added Four Things This Week

Four new things this week.

The shelf in the hall, which was an idea on Tuesday. The thing with the gate. The cupboard you opened on Thursday and decided to sort out. And the fourth one, which you cannot immediately name, which tells you something on its own.

And nothing closed. Nothing came off. The list is four longer than it was on Monday and everything that was on it on Monday is still on it.

Here is what is actually happening, and it is not carelessness.

Starting is the only part of a project that reliably feels good. It is the part with the idea in it, the part where the picture of the finished thing is clearest, and the part that costs nothing yet. So a man who wants the feeling of progress, which is every man alive, reaches for the part that produces it.

Starting produces it. Finishing sometimes does not. And so a week goes by with four starts and no finishes, and the list gets longer and the feeling was real the whole way through.

You are a man with no gate on his own list, and four new things in a week has never once been a failure of restraint.

A city that is broken down, and without walls

There is a proverb about a city with a structural problem, and the picture in it is the one that fits.

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. (Proverbs 25:28, King James Version)

A city that is broken down, and without walls.

Take the picture first and leave the man out of it for a moment, because the picture is a diagram and diagrams are useful.

A city without walls is not a bad city. The buildings are fine. The people in it are fine. What it does not have is any control over what comes in, and so everything that arrives, arrives, and nothing is turned away at any point.

You have a diagram in front of you rather than a diagnosis, and a city without walls has never once been a city that was doing anything wrong. Proverbs 25:28 describes a structure rather than a character, and the Holy Spirit is the one who hands a man a picture instead of a name.

And notice the phrase broken down. Not never built. Broken down, which means there were walls once and something happened to them.

That is a much kinder reading than the one most men give themselves. Something that used to function has stopped functioning, and things that have stopped functioning can be repaired.

You were never a man with no walls at all, and something broken down has never once been the same as something that was never there. The Spirit of God is the one who repairs, and the written word says broken down rather than saying absent.

A list with no gate on it

So here is the practical claim, and it is about intake rather than about output.

Everything in that house is aimed at the wrong end. Every plan, every good intention, every attempt at a better system, is about getting things off the list faster.

Nothing in that house is aimed at what comes on. There is no gate, no test, no moment where a new idea has to wait outside for a week before it is allowed in.

You have been working entirely on the exit and never once on the entrance, and a list with no gate on it has never once been a list anybody could get ahead of. Proverbs 25:28 pictures the problem as a missing wall rather than as a lazy population, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man which end of a thing to work on.

And here is why the entrance is the easier end, which is the good news in this article.

Getting things off the list requires time, energy, materials and a free evening. Keeping things off the list requires nothing at all. It is the only intervention available that costs a man absolutely nothing.

You have a move available that costs nothing whatsoever, and adding nothing to a list has never once required an evening or a tool. The Spirit of God is the one who offers a repair that costs nothing, and Proverbs 25:28 identifies a wall as the missing piece rather than a harder working citizenry.

And one more, and it is where the mercy in this row sits. The ideas are not the problem.

You were never wrong to have had the ideas, and a mind that keeps producing good projects has never once been a mind with something the matter with it. Proverbs 25:28 speaks about a wall and not about the quality of what is outside it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps the picture pointed at the structure.

Add nothing for seven days

Here is the assignment and it is the only one on this site that asks for less rather than more.

Add nothing to the list for seven days.

Nothing. No matter how good the idea is. No matter how obviously it needs doing. No matter that you noticed it and it will be forgotten if it does not go down somewhere.

You have seven days of adding nothing available to you, and holding a good idea outside a gate has never once been the same as refusing it. Proverbs 25:28 names a missing wall as the problem, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a week of restraint bearable for a man who thinks in projects.

The ideas will come. They always do. Four of them will arrive this week exactly as they did last week.

Let them wait outside. If an idea is still there on the eighth day, write it down then, and it will have lost nothing by waiting a week. Most of them will not be there, which is information worth having.

And write the date the seven days began. On the list itself, at the top.

You have a date that turns a vague intention into a fact, and a week with no marker on it has never once survived a Tuesday evening with a good idea in it. A date at the top of a page holds where a resolution does not. Proverbs 25:28 names the missing wall as the trouble, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a fact out of an intention.

Then do the ordinary work of the week as normal. This is not a week off. It is a week with a gate on it.