I Took A Cutting Before The House Was Cleared

It was the last day.

The skip was outside, most of it was gone, and you went round one more time in case there was anything, and there was almost nothing left that was hers.

And you broke a piece off one of the plants in the kitchen and put it in your pocket.

You did it without deciding to. You were out of the house ten minutes later, and it was in a jar of water on your counter by that evening, and it has been there since.

And now you check it. Daily. For roots that have not come yet.

So before anything about cuttings, I want to say what I think is in that jar.

You are asking a three inch piece of a plant to carry a family and a house and the last day of both.

I have a goodly heritage

David writes about what he has inherited, and he is not talking about property.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. (Psalm 16:6, King James Version)

I have a goodly heritage.

You have already received the whole of what came to you from that house, and nothing you carried out of it in your pocket has ever once been where it is held. Psalm 16:6 says I have a goodly heritage, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over somebody checking a jar of water for roots.

The lines in that verse are boundary lines. It is surveyor language, about the portion of ground that fell to a man.

And David uses it for something that was never land. He is describing what he has been given as a life, the whole shape of it, and calling it good.

Which means the word heritage in that sentence is already doing what you are trying to make the cutting do. It is holding the whole thing.

You are carrying an inheritance that was never once the kind of thing that goes in a pocket, and a house being emptied has never once been able to take it off you. The Spirit of God is what makes that a possession rather than a sentiment, and Psalm 16 is where the goodly heritage is written down.

What a cutting can and cannot do

Now the practical half, and it is honest in both directions.

A cutting in water may root. Many do. It takes weeks, it happens invisibly, and checking it daily neither helps nor harms.

And it may not. Some do not, for no reason anybody can identify, and a piece that does not root is not a piece that was taken wrong. That is the whole of what can be said about it, and it is genuinely all anybody knows.

You are holding a question nobody on earth can answer for you, and the not knowing has never once been a sign that you did it badly in a hurry. Psalm 16:6 calls the heritage already received, and the Spirit of God is the one who is honest about what cannot be known.

You have done nothing to that cutting that could have decided the outcome, and taking it in a rush on the last day has never once been the thing that determines whether it roots. What is written in Psalm 16:6 calls the heritage already received, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an outcome off a jar.

And here is the part that matters more, and it is about the daily checking.

The checking is not about roots. It is about wanting something from that house to have survived, and wanting it visibly, and wanting it soon.

That is an entirely reasonable thing to want, and it cannot be answered by a jar.

You are asking a jar of water for a confirmation it has never once been able to give, and the wanting of it has never been foolish. The Spirit of God is the one who names that without embarrassment, and Psalm 16 is the ground under the heritage.

Say what you actually took

So here is the instruction, and the second half is the whole thing.

Change the water in the jar today. That is the practical part and it takes ten seconds and it is genuinely all the cutting needs.

And then say out loud what you actually took out of that house.

Not the cutting. The other things. The way she said a particular word. What the kitchen smelled like on a Sunday. The thing she always did with her hands when she was thinking. Whatever comes.

You have a list in you that no skip on any street has ever once been able to take, and none of those items needed carrying out in a pocket. Psalm 16:6 says the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that list up when a person finally asks for it.

Say two or three of them, out loud, over the jar. Badly. In no order. Because those are the things that came out of the house, and they came out inside you, and they did not need a pocket, and they cannot be poured away.

You are able to name the real inheritance out loud in about a minute, and saying two or three things badly has never once been an inadequate way to carry somebody. Psalm 16:6 says I have a goodly heritage, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing with somebody at a counter over a jar of water.