The last four times you started something, it got interrupted, and after the fourth one you stopped starting.
Not out loud. There was no decision. It went into the general category of things that do not really work in this house.
And what actually happened each time was that something rang, or somebody came to the door, or work needed eleven minutes, and by the time you came back the room had dissolved.
So there is a rule operating now that nobody wrote: do not start it if it might not finish.
That rule is why the box has stayed where it is for about two months, and the rule is not about phones and it is not about work. It is about the shape of an unfinished thing.
An interrupted evening feels worse than no evening. That is the whole engine of it, and it is worth looking at because it is not true.
I am not going to tell you to be unavailable. There are things you have to answer and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
I am going to change what an interruption means, and once it means something different, starting becomes possible again.
I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down
There is a sentence in Nehemiah that is one of the most useful things anybody has ever said about interruptions.
And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? (Nehemiah 6:3, King James Version)
He is building a wall. People keep sending for him. Each request is reasonable on its face.
And he does not ignore them. He answers, which is worth noticing, and the answer is that the work is what he is doing and he is not coming down.
You are a man doing a great work at his own table, and an interruption has never once been the end of the thing it interrupted. Nehemiah 6:3 has a man answer a request without leaving what he was doing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of a man without asking him to be unreachable.
And look at his reasoning, because it is the whole verse.
Why should the work cease, he asks, if he leaves it and comes down to them. He is not saying the request is unimportant. He is saying that leaving stops the work.
The problem is not the request. It is the coming down.
You have been reading the ringing as the problem, and a thing that asked for your attention has never once been the thing that ended an evening. The Spirit of God is the one who locates a problem precisely, and it is written in Nehemiah 6 that the ceasing came from the leaving rather than from the asking.
And he says it four times in that chapter. Four separate requests, the same answer each time.
The wall gets finished in fifty two days, and the interruptions never stopped coming.
You are able to be interrupted repeatedly and still finish, and four interruptions have never once been able to stop a thing that kept getting picked back up. It is written that he sent the same answer four times, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man returning to a table.
The going back is the whole thing
Now the practical part, and it is one action.
The evening does not end when you leave the table. It ends when you do not come back.
Those are different events and they have been fused in your head, and separating them is most of this article.
You are able to leave a table without ending an evening, and eleven minutes away have never once been the close of anything. The Spirit of God is the one who separates two events a man has been treating as one, and Nehemiah 6:3 puts the ceasing on the leaving and never on the going away for a moment.
And here is the thing that has made the going back impossible.
By the time you come back, the room has changed. People have moved. Momentum has gone. And walking back into that costs something, and it is easier to put it away and say we will do it properly another time.
That sentence, said four times, is what put the box on the shelf.
You have been paying a small price to avoid a smaller one, and coming back to a changed room has never once been harder than not coming back at all. It is written in Nehemiah 6 that the work went on for fifty two days with the requests still arriving, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man back up onto a wall.
And when you go back, say nothing about the interruption.
No sorry about that. No right, where were we. Both of those mark the break and make it a thing. Sit down and carry on from wherever it is.
You are able to resume without acknowledging a gap, and an evening picked back up has never once been an evening that had been broken. The Spirit of God is the one at work in something continued, and Scripture has a man answer and keep building without ever describing the interruption to anybody.
Expect it before you start
Here is the instruction and the expecting is the important half.
Start tonight expecting to be interrupted, and go back to the table afterward instead of putting it away.
Decide before you sit down that something will come, and that when it does you will deal with it and return. Both halves, decided in advance.
You are able to plan for the thing you have been protecting against, and an evening that expected an interruption has never once been ruined by one. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something started with its interruption already accounted for, and Nehemiah 6:3 has a man with an answer ready before the messengers arrived.
And leave everything exactly where it is when you go.
Do not tidy it up on the way past. Do not close anything. A thing left mid way is a thing that is obviously going to be returned to, and everybody in the room reads that correctly.
You have a way to say you are coming back without saying anything, and a table left mid way has never once looked like a table that had finished. The Spirit of God is the one who works through something left as it was, and it is written that Nehemiah stayed on the wall and never came down.
And if it takes twenty minutes and the room has emptied, sit down anyway for two minutes with whatever is there.
You are able to come back to an empty table and have that count, and two minutes at a table nobody is at have never once been a wasted return. It is written in Nehemiah 6 that he answered four times and finished in fifty two days, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in a return that nobody witnessed.
So this is what I believe is going out over a man who has stopped starting.
You are a man doing a great work at his own table, and an interruption has never once been the end of the thing it interrupted. I am not telling you the interruptions are not real. Nehemiah 6:3 says I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who has had a box on a shelf in front of you for two months.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have never once been stopped, and a man who kept going back has never once been a man whose evening was ended by anybody. Scripture puts the ceasing on the leaving rather than on the request, and the Spirit of God is the one who turns a man back toward a room.
Start it. Expect it. Go back.
Declare this over yourself
- Interruption that has stopped me starting anything, you are eleven minutes and you were never once the end of an evening. Nehemiah 6:3 says I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down, so by the Holy Spirit I start tonight and come back, in the name of Jesus.
- Fear that an unfinished evening is worse than none, you have never once been checked against a wall that took fifty two days. The written word puts the ceasing on the leaving and not on the asking, and by the Spirit of God I leave it exactly as it is and return.
- Father, You had a man answer four separate requests without coming down off the wall once. Your word says it in Nehemiah 6, so by Your Spirit I go back into that room instead of upstairs.
Nehemiah 6:3
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