Twenty Minutes Is Not Worth Starting

You have been running a rule in your head and it has never been said out loud.

The rule is that if there is not enough time to do it properly, there is no point starting.

It applies to a great many things and you would defend it in most of them. It is why you do not begin a job at twenty to five. It is sensible about laundry and about paperwork and about almost everything.

And it has quietly been applied to twenty minutes at a table, and there it does something completely different, and it has cost you about two years.

Because the rule assumes that a partial version of a thing produces a partial result. Half a job done is half a job.

That is true of a job. It is not true of people in a room, and the difference is the whole of this article.

I am not going to argue you out of being sensible. You are sensible and it works and I am not taking it off you.

I am going to show you one category where the rule does the opposite of what it was built for.

What are they among so many

There is a moment before the feeding of the five thousand where somebody does the arithmetic out loud, and the arithmetic is correct.

There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? (John 6:9, King James Version)

Andrew is not being faithless. He is being accurate. Five loaves and two fish among that crowd is nothing, and any reasonable person would say so.

And the sentence he says is the sentence you have been saying about twenty minutes.

You are a woman holding something worth handing over, and a small amount has never once been the same thing as not enough. John 6:9 records a correct calculation that was also completely beside the point, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can show somebody the difference without calling their arithmetic wrong.

And notice what happens to the loaves, because it is the hinge.

They do not get counted again. They do not get supplemented or held back until there are more of them. They get handed over.

The whole miracle sits on one side of a very simple line: the small thing was given rather than assessed.

You have been assessing where you were meant to be handing over, and a thing measured against the need has never once been a thing offered to God. The Spirit of God is the one who moves something out of a calculation and into an offering, and it is written in John 6 that the loaves went into His hands exactly as they were.

And the boy in that passage is worth noticing too, because nobody records him hesitating.

He had a lunch. Somebody asked for it. As far as the text goes he handed it over without doing any sums at all.

You are able to hand something over without weighing it first, and a small thing given has never once needed to be sufficient before it was offered. It is written that there is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a woman's arithmetic out of her hands.

What twenty minutes actually produces

Now the practical half, and it is about what is actually being made in that room.

The assumption underneath it is that twenty minutes produces a fifth of what a hundred minutes produces. That is how it works with a job.

It is not how it works with people. Twenty minutes in one room produces a complete thing: everybody was together, it happened, it is in the week.

You are able to produce a whole thing in a short time, and a household in one room for twenty minutes has never once been a fifth of anything. The Spirit of God is the one who shows what is actually being made, and John 6:9 has a small amount become a complete meal rather than a partial one.

And here is what a hundred minutes produces that twenty does not, which is worth being honest about.

More minutes. That is genuinely all. The nature of the thing does not change with the length, and the good part is not stored in the back half.

You have not been missing anything by having less of it, and a shorter version has never once been a lesser version of the same thing. It is written in John 6 that everybody was filled and there was more left over than they started with, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a small offering into a complete one.

So the rule is right about jobs and wrong about this, and the correction is narrow.

Keep the rule for the paperwork. Take it off the table.

You are able to keep a good rule and exempt one thing from it, and an exception made deliberately has never once been an inconsistency. The Spirit of God is the one who lets somebody be sensible about most things and reckless about one, and Scripture records a correct sum being handed over rather than defended.

Start the thing you have been declining

Here is the instruction and it is specific rather than general.

Start the thing that has been going undone, tonight, with the twenty minutes actually in front of you.

You know what it is. There is a particular thing that has been going undone for two years because there was never enough time to do it properly.

You are able to begin something that cannot be finished tonight, and a start has never once needed a finish attached to be worth making. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something begun rather than completed, and John 6:9 has a small thing handed over before anybody knew what would happen to it.

And do not aim to finish it. That is the part that makes it possible.

If it takes four sittings, it takes four sittings. Nothing about that is a failure and nobody in the room will experience it as one.

You have permission to leave something half done, and a thing continued next week has never once been a thing that did not happen this week. The Spirit of God is the one who works across four ordinary evenings, and it is written that the loaves were handed over without any calculation about sufficiency.

Then stop at twenty minutes even if you are in the middle of it.

You are able to stop something unfinished and come back, and an evening that ended mid way has never once been an evening that failed. It is written in John 6 that they gathered up the fragments and nothing was lost, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in a thing that is going to be picked up again on Thursday.