I Keep Saving It For A Better Twenty Minutes

You have had twenty minutes most nights this year and you have spent about six of them.

That is not laziness and there is no guilt in this article. Every one of those nights had a reason, and the reason was always the same, and it sounded sensible every single time.

Not like this. Not with only twenty minutes and one of them out and everybody half asleep. We will do it properly on the weekend.

And then the weekend has its own weather, and the proper version has not happened since about February.

Here is what has actually been going on, and it took me a while to see it in myself before I could name it in anybody else.

Saving something feels like valuing it. A man who holds back a small offer because he wants to give a better one is doing something that looks like care.

But the thing being saved is time, and time does not keep. It is not a jar of something in a cupboard. Tonight's twenty minutes are gone at ten o'clock whether or not anybody used them.

Who hath despised the day of small things

There is a rebuke in Zechariah that is disguised as a question, and it is aimed exactly at a man like you.

For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven. (Zechariah 4:10, King James Version)

The setting is a building project that everybody thinks is disappointing. The foundation has gone in and it is nothing like what stood there before, and people who remember the old one have been weeping about it.

And God asks who has despised the day of small things, which is not a gentle question.

You are a man with something in his hand tonight, and a small thing spent today has never once been worth less than a better thing saved. Zechariah 4:10 treats the despising of a small beginning as a serious matter rather than as modesty, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of a man without a word of shame in it.

And notice what is in Zerubbabel's hand in that verse. A plummet. A plumb line.

It is not a finished building. It is the tool you use at the beginning, and God points at it as the thing worth rejoicing over.

You have been waiting for the building and holding the plumb line, and the beginning of something has never once been a poor substitute for the whole of it. The Spirit of God is the one who names what is actually in a man's hand, and it is written in Zechariah 4 that the small day was the thing they were told to rejoice in.

So the question is not whether twenty minutes is enough. It is whether a small thing is being despised while a better one is waited for.

You are able to stop waiting for the good version, and a day of small things has never once been a day off. It is written that they shall rejoice and shall see the plummet in his hand, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a beginning weigh what a beginning weighs.

Time does not keep

Now the practical part, and it is arithmetic rather than encouragement.

A saved twenty minutes is not saved. It is spent, on nothing, at ten o'clock.

That is the whole of it and it is worth sitting with, because everything in a man's instincts says otherwise. Saving is a virtue with money, with effort, with almost everything except this.

You have been applying a good instinct to the one thing it does not work on, and time held back has never once been time kept. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man where a virtue has been misapplied, and Zechariah 4:10 asks who has despised the small day rather than who has been wise about it.

And the better twenty minutes has a problem you have not looked at.

When it arrives, it will be a Saturday afternoon with everybody free, which happens about eleven times a year, and it will carry the weight of everything that was saved for it.

That is why the good ones so often go badly. They are carrying six months of postponement.

You are able to have something ordinary rather than something loaded, and a Tuesday has never once been asked to carry what a saved Saturday carries. It is written in Zechariah 4 that a small beginning was to be rejoiced over rather than endured, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the weight off a good afternoon by spending the ordinary evenings.

And there is what the saving has taught your household, which is the reason to change it.

Twenty minutes offered and then withdrawn, with an explanation about a better time, teaches everybody that the real thing happens elsewhere and this is not it.

You have been telling them that tonight does not count, and a household has never once needed that said out loud to have heard it. The Spirit of God is the one who resets what an ordinary evening means in a house, and Scripture rejoices over a plumb line in a hand.

Spend it tonight

Here is the instruction and it is deliberately narrow.

Spend tonight's twenty minutes tonight. And stop looking for a better twenty minutes this week.

Not a resolution. Not a new habit. Tonight, with whatever is available, in whatever state everybody is in.

You are able to spend something before it goes, and twenty minutes used badly have never once been worth less than twenty minutes saved perfectly. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a beginning rather than in a finished thing, and Zechariah 4:10 puts the rejoicing at the plumb line stage.

And accept the poor conditions, because they are the point.

One of them is out. Somebody is tired. It is later than it should be. Every one of those was your reason last week and none of them is a reason at all.

You have never once needed the conditions you have been waiting for, and a poor evening spent has never once been a poor evening. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a tired Tuesday as much as in a Saturday, and it is written that the small day was not to be despised.

Then do it again tomorrow, without deciding to.

You are able to do this twice without it becoming a program, and a second ordinary evening has never once needed a commitment behind it. It is written in Zechariah 4 that the beginning was worth rejoicing over, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in two ordinary nights in a row.