We Spend The Twenty Getting Ready

By the time everybody is sitting down, the twenty minutes has gone.

You know the sequence. Somebody has to be found. Something has to be cleared. Two of them need it explained again. Somebody wants a drink first and that turns out to involve a decision.

And then it is a quarter past nine and the actual thing has about four minutes left in it, and everybody drifts, and you are left thinking that this house cannot organize itself.

It organizes itself fine. What has happened is that the getting ready has been allowed to become part of the event, and it is not part of the event and it never was.

Here is the thing I want to put in front of you: nobody has been waiting for the room to be right. Only you have.

The rest of them would have sat down at a table with things on it, with somebody standing up, with one person missing, at eight fifty, and had twenty minutes.

I am not going to tell you the preparing is pointless. It comes from a good place and it looks like care.

I am going to show you what it costs and hand you a much smaller version of it that takes sixty seconds.

One thing is needful

There is a moment in Luke where somebody preparing an evening properly is told something that is almost startling in its plainness.

But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:42, King James Version)

Martha is not doing anything wrong. She is doing exactly what a person does when guests come.

And she is told that one thing is needful, which is a number, and the number is one.

You are a father one decision away from the whole of it, and the getting ready has never once been part of the thing you were getting ready for. Luke 10:42 reduces a whole evening's necessities to a single item, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a man that reduction without a word against the preparing.

And notice that Mary is doing something that would look like doing nothing.

She is sitting. She is present. In terms of the evening's arrangements she is contributing precisely zero, and that is the part named as needful.

You have been supplying everything except the one thing, and a room that was not ready has never once been a room the good part could not happen in. The Spirit of God is the one who names the single necessity in a house full of necessary things, and it is written in Luke 10 that the good part was chosen rather than prepared.

And the phrase which shall not be taken away is worth having.

Whatever was chosen there was durable. The arrangements were not. Nobody remembers what was cleared off the table that night.

You are able to choose the durable thing tonight, and a clear surface has never once been the thing anybody carried away from an evening. It is written that one thing is needful, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates the needful from the reasonable.

What the preparing is really doing

Now let me name what is actually happening in those twenty minutes, because it is not organizing.

It is delay with a good reason attached. Every item on the list is genuine, and the list has no end, and the reason there is no end is that a room can always be more ready than it is.

You have been working on a task that cannot be completed, and a room has never once been ready enough to satisfy the man clearing it. The Spirit of God is the one who names an endless job as endless, and Luke 10:42 gives a number to something that had felt uncountable.

And there is a second thing, which is quieter.

Getting the room right is under your control. Sitting down with people is not. One of those is comfortable and one is exposing, and a man will do the comfortable one for twenty minutes without ever noticing what he is avoiding.

You are able to do the exposing thing directly, and sitting down in an unready room has never once been a smaller act of courage than clearing it first. It is written in Luke 10 that the sitting was the chosen thing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man what he has actually been doing with his hands.

And here is the cost, which is the reason to change it.

The people who came have watched twenty minutes of a man getting ready. That is what they experienced of the evening, and it is why they drift, because nobody stays for the preparation of a thing.

You have been giving them the preparing and calling it the evening, and a household has never once come for the setting up. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man what his own family actually attended, and Scripture puts the whole necessity at one.

Sixty seconds

Here is the instruction and the number is the instruction.

Start within sixty seconds tonight, in whatever state the room and the people are in.

One minute from deciding to begin, be begun. Not ready. Begun.

You are able to start before anything is right, and sixty seconds have never once been too little time to begin something that matters. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a room that was not prepared, and Luke 10:42 puts the whole of it on one thing rather than on the arrangements.

And accept every imperfection, because they are the point.

Things on the table. One person standing. Somebody who has not been found. Two who do not know what is happening. Every one of those is fine, and all of them resolve themselves within about four minutes once something is actually going.

You have been solving problems that solve themselves, and a room that sorted itself out has never once needed a man to sort it first. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something that started badly, and it is written that the good part was chosen and could not be taken away.

And do not explain it. Do not say we are starting whether or not everybody is ready.

Just start. The starting is the whole announcement, and a household that hears something already going will come to it far faster than one being assembled.

You are able to begin without announcing a beginning, and a thing already underway has never once needed anybody to be called to it. It is written in Luke 10 that Mary sat down rather than being summoned, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in a room where something was already happening.