It Sat In The Car For Two Days

It is still in the car.

Somebody at work handed it to you on Thursday. A leaving gift, a thank you, one of those. You said the right things and put it on the passenger seat.

And then you got home and did not take it in.

It went in the footwell when you needed the seat, and it has been there through Friday and the weekend, and you have seen it every single time you have gotten in and out.

You are not a man who leaves things in cars. That is the part that is bothering you.

So here is what I think is going on, and it is not laziness and it is not forgetting.

Carrying it in is the part that counts as agreeing.

A just man riseth up again

Proverbs has a line about falling that is usually quoted as encouragement and is actually a description.

For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief. (Proverbs 24:16, King James Version)

A just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again.

You are described in that verse exactly as you are, and seven falls have never once been the thing that disqualified a just man from being called just. Proverbs 24:16 puts the falling and the rising in the same sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a man walking past his own car.

Read what it does not do. It does not say a just man falls once and then gets his act together. It does not say the seven falls are a problem to be explained.

It says a just man falls seven times and rises. The falling is part of the description of the just man. It is not evidence against him.

That is a different arithmetic from the one you have been using, where every failed thing adds up and eventually a conclusion gets reached about the kind of man you are.

You have been keeping a running total that scripture has never once kept about anybody, and no count of seven has ever been able to change what you are called. The Spirit of God is what turns that from a nice idea into something a man can stand on, and Proverbs 24 is where the seven is written down.

What carrying it in actually means

Now the practical half, and it is about the threshold.

While it is in the car it is not yours. It is a thing somebody gave you, in transit, undeclared. Nobody at home knows about it. Nothing has started.

The moment it comes through the door and lands on a surface, it becomes an item in your life, with a location and a status, and you become a man who has a plant that is either doing well or not.

That is the whole weight of it. It is not the watering. Nobody in the history of the world has been defeated by ninety seconds a week.

It is the change in category, from a thing in a car to a thing you are responsible for.

You are allowed to take something on without it becoming a measure of you, and a pot on a counter has never once been able to hold a report on a man's life. What is written in Proverbs 24:16 counts the rising and not the falling, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an item back down to the size of an item.

And here is what I would add, because it matters for how you do this.

It was a gift. Somebody at work thought of you, went and got it, and handed it over. That already happened. The kindness is complete, and it was complete on Thursday afternoon in a break room, and nothing that happens to the plant afterward reaches back and undoes it.

You have already received the whole of what was given, and what happens to that plant has never once had the power to reach back into Thursday. The Spirit of God is the one who seals a kindness where it happened, and Proverbs 24 is the ground under the man who rises.

Do not find it a place first

So here is the instruction, and there is one detail that will decide whether this works.

Bring it in tonight and put it on the nearest surface.

Do not find it a place. That is the trap. The moment the job becomes where should this go, it becomes a decision, and a decision needs time you do not have on a weeknight, and it stays in the car another three days.

Counter. Table. The thing by the door where the keys go. Whatever surface your hand reaches first.

You are permitted to skip the deciding entirely, and the nearest flat surface has never once been the wrong place to put something down. Proverbs 24:16 says and riseth up again without naming a method, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a small act small.

Then water it, once, and leave it there. It can move next week. It probably will. But moving a plant that is already in the house is a small pleasant thing, and finding a place for a plant that is still in the car is a project.

You have a doorway and a counter and about forty seconds, and nothing more than that has ever once been required to start this. Proverbs 24:16 has the just man rising rather than planning, and the Holy Spirit is the one who walks a man in from a driveway.

You are able to do the whole of this in about forty seconds, and skipping the deciding has never once been the same as not caring where it ends up. Proverbs 24:16 has the just man rising without a plan attached, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man through his own doorway with a pot in his hand.