I Kept Chasing The Light Around The Room

It has been in six places.

The windowsill first, then the table because the sill got too hot in the afternoon, then the shelf when the sun moved round, then back to the sill, then the counter, then where it is now, which is not really anywhere.

And every single move was reasoned. You were not being random. You watched where the light went and you followed it.

Which is a strange sentence when you look at it. You have spent a season carrying a pot around a room after a sun that was never going to stay anywhere.

And the plant has been reacting to six different sets of conditions in the time it takes to properly settle into one.

So before anything else: the chasing is the thing that is costing you, not the light.

In quietness and in confidence

Isaiah records a line that God says to a people who were in constant motion trying to fix something, and it is worth hearing the whole shape of it.

For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. (Isaiah 30:15, King James Version)

In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.

You are being offered a strength that comes from stopping, and no amount of motion has ever once been able to produce what stillness produces. Isaiah 30:15 says in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over somebody carrying a pot across a room again.

And then the last three words of that verse, which are among the saddest in the book. And ye would not.

They were not offered nothing. They were offered rest, and they did not take it, because taking it would have felt like doing nothing while something was wrong.

That is the exact feeling you get when you think about leaving the pot where it is.

You were offered the stopping as the strength rather than as the giving up, and refusing rest has never once been the same as being diligent. The Spirit of God is what makes that land rather than sting, and Isaiah 30 is where the quietness is written down.

What a move actually costs

Now the practical half, and it is one fact you may not have.

A plant takes roughly two to four weeks to adjust to a new position.

It is not instant. The leaves it has were built for the light it was in before, and it takes time to grow leaves adapted to the new level and to stop running the old ones. During that stretch it often looks slightly worse, which is the period everybody interprets as a bad spot and responds to by moving it again.

You are not somebody who failed to notice, and every one of those six moves has never once been anything except attention. Isaiah 30:15 offers rest as the strength rather than as a rebuke, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names a season of effort without shaming it.

So six moves in a season means that plant has spent the entire season adjusting and none of it settled. It has never been in one place long enough to show you what that place does.

Which means all six of your observations were made on a plant in transition, and none of them told you anything about the spot.

You have been reading a plant that never once had time to tell you the truth about any of those six positions. What is written in Isaiah 30:15 makes the quietness the strength, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a season of effort into information instead of a verdict.

And this is the part that will feel wrong, and it is the whole instruction.

An adequate spot with four weeks in it beats a perfect spot with four days. By a great deal. It is not close.

You are able to choose adequate on purpose, and settling for a spot that is merely good enough has never once been carelessness about a living thing. The Spirit of God is the one who makes good enough feel like a decision rather than a defeat, and Isaiah 30 is the ground under it.

Pick one and stop

So here is the instruction, and the difficulty in it is entirely about your hands.

Pick one spot today. Not the best one. There is no way to know the best one and looking for it is what has been happening all season.

Somewhere with some light, out of the way, where you will see it. Set it down.

You have permission to stop looking for the best one, and an ordinary spot chosen on purpose has never once been a lesser decision than a perfect one hunted for. The Spirit of God is the one who ends a search kindly, and Isaiah 30:15 puts the strength in the quietness.

And then do not move it for four weeks. Not when it looks like it is not enjoying itself on day nine. Not when the sun changes angle. Not when you read something.

Write down the date four weeks out, because on day nine you will have an excellent reason, and the note is what will stop you.

You are able to leave your hands off a pot for four weeks, and four weeks of not moving it has never once been a season wasted. Isaiah 30:15 says in returning and rest shall ye be saved, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with somebody on day nine looking at a plant and not picking it up.