It Drooped And I Gave It More

You were across the room.

You saw it go over. That particular way they do it, where the whole thing loses its uprightness at once and leans, and it looks exactly like something failing.

And you were at the sink with the can inside about eleven seconds.

That is the honest number. Not a minute. Not a thought. Eleven seconds between seeing and pouring, and you have done that four or five times now this month.

So here is the thing to put in front of everything else.

The gap between seeing and acting is where this whole article lives, and eleven seconds is not enough room for anything true to arrive.

And there is nothing wrong with a man who moves fast. In most of the situations a life throws up, the man who is at the sink in eleven seconds is the one you want in the room. This is one of the few places where that particular strength works directly against the thing it is trying to help.

He that hasteth with his feet

Proverbs has half a verse about speed that is more useful than almost anything written about plants.

Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth. (Proverbs 19:2, King James Version)

He that hasteth with his feet.

You are being warned about speed rather than about effort, and no reaching hand has ever once been the same thing as a careless one. Proverbs 19:2 says he that hasteth with his feet sinneth, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a man at a sink eleven seconds after he saw something lean.

Read the first half too, because the two halves belong together. That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good.

So it is not praising ignorance and then warning about speed. It is saying both: acting without knowing is trouble, and moving fast is trouble, and the second one is how the first one usually happens.

Hasting with the feet is not a moral failing in the usual sense. It is arriving before the information does.

You were never accused of not caring, and moving fast has never once been the same fault as not paying attention. The Spirit of God is what makes that distinction usable in a kitchen, and Proverbs 19 is where the hasting is written down.

What a droop actually means

Now the practical half, and this is the fact that makes the whole thing work.

A plant droops for two opposite reasons, and they look identical.

It droops when it is dry, because there is not enough water in the stems to hold them up. And it droops when it is waterlogged, because the roots have been sitting in airless soil and stop taking water up, so the stems get nothing.

The second one looks exactly like the first one. Exactly. There is no difference visible from across a room.

You are being asked to read a signal that has two opposite meanings, and no eye on earth has ever once been able to tell those two apart. Proverbs 19:2 puts the trouble in the hasting rather than in the seeing, and the Spirit of God is the one who says that without any blame in it.

So the single most dangerous moment for a plant that is being overwatered is the moment it droops, because that is the moment it looks most obviously thirsty.

You have been reading the clearest possible signal in the only way it can be read, and no man has ever once been able to tell those two apart at a glance. What is written in Proverbs 19:2 warns about arriving ahead of the knowledge, and the Holy Spirit is the one who slows a man down enough to get it.

And here is the part that matters, and it is why the instruction is a timer.

A plant that is genuinely dry will stay drooped. A plant that is waterlogged will often lift slightly within an hour anyway, or stay exactly the same.

One hour of doing nothing distinguishes them, and nothing else does.

You are one hour away from actually knowing, and an hour of waiting has never once been the same as an hour of ignoring it. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an hour bearable, and Proverbs 19 is the ground under the hasting.

Set a timer

So here is the instruction and the timer is not decoration.

When it droops today, set a timer for one hour. And do nothing until it goes off.

Set an actual timer, on a phone or an oven or anything. Because an hour that is only intended is not an hour, and you already know how the eleven seconds goes.

The timer does the waiting for you, which is the point. It means you do not have to hold the decision open in your head for sixty minutes, which is the part that is genuinely hard.

And then when it goes off, go and look. Put a finger in the soil once. If it is dry, water it properly, once. If it is wet, you have just learned something you could not have learned any other way, and you have not made it worse.

You are able to buy an hour with a timer, and sixty minutes of doing nothing has never once been an hour in which nothing was done. Proverbs 19:2 warns the man who hastes with his feet, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing with a man while a timer runs.