Nothing Came In This Month

Almost nothing came in this month, and you have started looking for what it means.

That is the thing that has happened over about three weeks, and it happened without a decision. At first it was just a quiet month. Then it was a quiet month you were trying to account for. And now it has become a message, and you have been reading it, and you have got about four different readings.

Some days it means you are not good enough. Some days it means you were never going to be able to do this. On Wednesday, at about four in the afternoon, it meant that everybody who asked about a proper job was right.

And none of those are in the month. The month is a number in a book. You have been supplying the meaning.

I am not going to tell you how to turn it round, because that would be strategy and there is none of it here. And I am not going to tell you the quiet is God teaching you something, because I do not believe that and I am not going to say it to get you through an afternoon. I am going to show you a verse that says nothing grew and then says something else.

No blossom, and no verdict

There is a sentence at the end of Habakkuk that lists five failures one after another, and then turns, and the turn does not explain any of them.

He names the absences plainly. Nothing is spiritualized and nothing is softened.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat. (Habakkuk 3:17, King James Version)

You are allowed to say that nothing came in, and saying it has never once been unbelief. Habakkuk 3:17 lists the empty fig tree and the failed olive and the bare fields one after another without explaining a single one of them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a kitchen table with a closed ledger on it.

Count what is in that list. Figs, grapes, olives, fields, and in the next line the flock and the herd. Five or six failures, named in order, with no reason offered for any of them.

And then the next verse turns. Yet I will rejoice. It is a turn and it is not an explanation, and it is worth noticing that the prophet never says why the fig tree was bare. He does not know and he does not claim to.

You have permission to name an empty month without supplying a reason, and the reason has never once been yours to find. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a list of failed harvests reach a man sitting at his own kitchen table, and Habakkuk 3:17 names the absences and offers no account of them at all.

You supplied the meaning

Let me say what has actually happened over three weeks, because it matters which part is the problem.

The month is not the problem. The month is quiet. What has been doing the damage is the meaning, and the meaning is not in the ledger, it came from you, and it arrives on a schedule: about four in the afternoon and again somewhere after eleven at night.

You were the one supplying the verdict, and the month has never once contained one. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man where a meaning actually came from, and the written word lists bare fields without giving a reason in Habakkuk 3:17.

And notice that the readings contradict each other. Not good enough. Never going to manage it. Everybody else was right. Those are three different verdicts, and a real piece of evidence only supports one conclusion. Four conclusions from one month means the month is not evidence.

It is a number in a book and it is a disappointing number and that is all it has ever been.

You are not under judgment here, and you never were. His Spirit is the one who takes a verdict out of a number without pretending the number is good, and Habakkuk 3:17 holds the failure and the rejoicing in the same breath without joining them with a reason.

One ordinary thing, and stop looking

So here is the exercise, and it has two halves and they belong together.

Do one ordinary piece of the work today. The dull thing, the one nobody has asked for, done properly. Not something aimed at ending the quiet, because that would be strategy and this is not that.

You are able to do one ordinary thing today, and doing it has never once been pretending. Habakkuk 3:17 names the bare fields and then turns without explaining them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes two ordinary hours possible for a man who has spent three weeks reading a ledger.

And stop looking for the cause. Not forever, just stop the afternoon search and the eleven o'clock one. When the search starts, say out loud that you are not going to find it, because you are not, and three weeks of looking is enough evidence of that.

The looking is not diligence. You have been thorough. It is finished.

You were never going to be told why, and the work has never once been waiting on a reason. The Spirit of God carries a man out of a search and into an afternoon, and the written word lists five absences and offers no explanation for any of them in Habakkuk 3:17.