It Was The Only Thing I Finished

Sunday to Sunday, and nothing.

The thing you meant to sort out did not get sorted out. Two of the calls did not happen. You did not do the one with the deadline and you are going to have to deal with that this week instead.

And there was a pot, and you watered it on Wednesday.

That is the week. And when you went back over it on Sunday evening, the watering did not appear anywhere, because it did not seem to belong on a list of things achieved.

So the whole question here is arithmetic.

And arithmetic is answerable, which is why it is worth taking up rather than leaving as a feeling. A feeling about a week cannot be argued with. A sum can, and this one has a mistake in it that has been running for longer than one week and is probably running through most of your Sunday evenings.

What actually happened in that week, and who is doing the counting.

She cast in all that she had

There is a moment in Luke where Jesus watches people putting money into the treasury, and what He says about the smallest amount is the point.

And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all. (Luke 21:2-3, King James Version)

This poor widow hath cast in more than they all.

You are being measured by somebody who does not count what a thing looks like on a list, and the smallest amount put in has never once been reckoned as the smallest amount given. Luke 21:3 says this poor widow hath cast in more than they all, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman going back over a week on a Sunday evening.

Look at what He does with the arithmetic. He does not say she gave a small amount and it was lovely.

He says she cast in more. More than all of them, which is a claim about quantity, made about the physically smallest contribution in the building that day.

You are being counted by somebody who does not add up what a thing looks like, and the smallest visible amount has never once come out smallest in that arithmetic. Luke 21:3 is where the claim is made, and the Spirit of God is the one who runs the sum that way.

And He is not being generous with the numbers. He is using a different denominator. Not what went in against what everybody else put in, but what went in against what the person had.

You have been using the wrong denominator all week, and a week measured against a full one has never once been the measure being applied to you. The Spirit of God is what makes that a real recalculation rather than a kind thought, and Luke 21 is where the widow is written down.

What the week actually contained

Now the practical half, and it is about the Sunday evening review.

You went back over the week and the watering did not appear. It got filtered out before the list was made, and it was filtered out on the grounds that it was too small to be an achievement.

But the list was not a list of achievements. It was a list of the things you had intended to do, checked against what got done, which is a different document with a different purpose.

A watered plant does not appear on that list because it was never on the original one. It was not a planned task. It just happened, on Wednesday, in a week when nothing happened.

You have been measuring one document against another and calling the gap a verdict, and no plan has ever once been a complete description of what a week contained. What is written in Luke 21:3 counts against what a person actually had, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the right denominator.

And here is what the week actually contained, said plainly.

It contained a woman who did not manage the things she meant to, in a stretch she will not describe to anybody in detail, and who nonetheless kept a living thing alive.

That is not a consolation prize. That is a fact about the week, and it is the only fact in it that involved somebody being kept.

You have kept something alive in a week that was keeping nothing else alive, and that has never once been a small thing to have done. The Spirit of God is the one who counts it, and Luke 21 is the ground under the widow's two mites.

Write one line

So here is the instruction and it is deliberately very small, because the week has no room in it for anything larger.

Write down one line about the week. I watered the plant.

That is the whole line. Do not write anything else. Do not write it as a lament, do not add and nothing else, and do not put a comment after it.

And here is why writing rather than thinking. A thing that has only ever been thought about can be filtered out on review, which is exactly what happened on Sunday. A thing that is written down is on the record, and it stays there, and the next review has to get past it.

You are able to put something beyond the reach of your own filter, and a line on paper has never once been filtered out the way a thought is. Luke 21:3 counts against what a person had, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a written line survive a Sunday evening.

One line, on whatever is nearest. It will look absurd on its own and it is meant to.

You are able to put one true thing on the record, and a single written line has never once been too small to survive a review. Luke 21:3 counts two mites as more than them all, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman writing five words on a Sunday evening.