Somebody else started the thing.
That is the part that has been sitting in her all week, and it is not a nice thing to be sitting with, and she has been quite honest with herself about it, which does not help as much as people say it does.
It is a good thing. It launched about six weeks ago and about thirty people go. It is somewhat disorganized and the room is not right and there is a font on the poster that she would not have chosen and one of the two people running it says something almost every week that makes her wince.
And she could have done it better. That is not arrogance and it is not even really an opinion. It is a straightforward assessment and about four people who know her would say the same thing without being asked.
She has been thinking about a thing like that for four years.
Not vaguely. She has thought about the room, the shape of the evening, who it would be for. She has thought about it enough that when the poster went up her stomach did something.
And the reason she never started it is one she could not have explained until quite recently, when she finally put words to it in her car.
She has been waiting to feel ready. And she does not know what ready would feel like. She has never been able to describe it, not to anyone, not to herself, and she has been waiting four years for an experience she cannot identify in advance and would not necessarily recognize if it happened.
Where this does not go
Let me say it now, because you are twenty-eight and you will be waiting for the turn.
Nothing here is going to tell you what you are for. There is no list at the bottom and no exercise and nothing dressed up as insight about you.
And nothing here is going to tell you the four years were disobedience or that you have wasted them. You have not.
And nothing here is going to hand you a plan, tell you to start something, or suggest anything that reaches past this week. Especially not the thing you have been thinking about, which this page knows nothing about and has no business steering.
You are not being pushed toward that thing, and you are not being scolded for four years. That is not caution on my part. Scripture handles this in one sentence about size, and the Holy Spirit has never once required a person to feel ready before He would move her.
He names the size
Here is the sentence, and it is doing something that is easy to miss because it sounds like a stepping stone principle and is not.
He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.Luke 16:10
He that is faithful in that which is least.
Least. Not small as in the first rung of something. Least, which is the smallest available quantity there is.
And notice what the sentence is not saying. It is not saying that being faithful in the least earns you the much. That is how people usually preach it and it is a promise about outcomes.
What it actually says is that the two are the same quality. The faithfulness in the least and the faithfulness in much are one thing appearing at two sizes. Which means the least is not a lesser version. It is the thing itself, in its smallest visible form.
You are able to do the actual thing at the smallest available size, and Scripture says that is the same quality rather than a lesser one. I am not stretching that. Luke 16:10 puts the two in an identity relation rather than a sequence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a written line like that and lands it on a woman in a car with a poster in her head.
Ready is not in the vocabulary
Now the plain thing, and it will save you a certain amount of time.
Go looking for readiness as a qualification in Scripture and you will not find it.
Moses said he could not speak. Gideon said his family was the poorest and he was the least in it. Jeremiah said he was a child. Isaiah said he was undone. Peter said depart from me, for I am a sinful man.
Every single one of those is a statement of unreadiness made directly to God at the moment of being sent, and not one of them is accepted as a reason, and not one of them is followed by a period of preparation until the feeling changed.
Readiness is not a category the Bible uses.
You have been waiting on a qualification that does not appear anywhere in the word as a requirement, and the people who were sent said the opposite of ready out loud. The word records the objection in half a dozen lives without ever treating it as disqualifying, and the Spirit who searches all things has been in that car with you and has not been withholding a feeling.
And the six weeks are not the point
One more thing, and then the small part.
The thing that started six weeks ago is not evidence about you. It is not a verdict, it is not a door closing, and it is certainly not proof that you missed something.
It is also not the thing you are being asked about, because this page is not asking you about that at all.
What is being asked is one ordinary thing, this week, already in front of you, at the least available size, requiring no readiness and no decision about four years.
You are able to take one ordinary thing this week without feeling ready and without any of this being about the thing that started six weeks ago. Scripture never requires a person to feel prepared before they may be faithful in the least, and the Spirit who was given to guide is not waiting at the far end of a readiness you cannot describe.
So come back to the car, and the poster with the font on it, and six weeks of somebody else's thing going along, disorganized, in the wrong room.
The four years were not wasted and they were not disobedience. You thought carefully about something and thinking carefully is good.
But readiness is not a category God works in. Nobody He sent was ready and several of them said so out loud, in that exact language, to His face, and He did not accept it as a reason and He did not wait for it to change.
You are free to do one ordinary thing this week without feeling ready, and Scripture calls faithfulness at the least size the same quality as faithfulness in much rather than a step toward it. That is Luke 16:10 in its identity relation, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a written line into ground a person can stand on in a car outside a community room, and God has never asked anybody to be ready first, and He has not been withholding a feeling from you for four years.
That is not a plan and it does not begin one. It is one week, and one thing in it, and nothing decided beyond it.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in the car, at the door, wherever you are sitting when you finish reading. Christ is in you and you are in Him, and that standing has been given to you rather than earned by preparing well, which is exactly why a woman who has never felt ready can speak like this. Scripture is the ground under it, the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than merely accurate, and how any of it unfolds from here is His to decide. What is being asked of you is one thing this week and nothing decided beyond it. That is small enough for tonight, and it stands on the Name and not on how convinced you feel.
- Four years of waiting to feel ready, you are not preparation. Scripture has Jesus say he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and least is a size He named on purpose and it is not a stage on the way to somewhere.
- Feeling I cannot describe and have been waiting on anyway, get out of this car. The Holy Spirit has been here through all four years and the word sends men who said they were unready to God's face, and in the name of Jesus I am taking one thing this week.
- Lord, You never once made readiness the requirement and You did not accept it as a reason from anybody. I thank You, because I do not need the whole picture to take the next thing, and this week I am doing the one thing in front of me gladly.
Luke 16:10
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.