In Quietness And Trust

She has worked out what coming back would involve and the size of it is why it has not happened.

She has not designed this on purpose. It assembled itself over eleven years, the way these things do, out of a hundred small assumptions she has never laid end to end.

But here is the shape of it in her head.

There would have to be a conversation with her sister. There would have to be some kind of admission, out loud, that the last decade was a mistake, which she is not sure it was. There would have to be a decision about what she now thinks concerning three or four specific things.

There would have to be a first time back, in a room, with people, and the noticing.

And somewhere in there she would have to become a person who is doing this, publicly, and answer for it.

That is an enormous project, and she is tired, and it never gets started, and every year the thing gets bigger because another year has been added to what would need explaining.

She is forty-five. The whole undertaking exists only in her head. Nobody has ever asked her for any of it.

So let me ask you.

What size have you assumed this would have to be?

Look at the size of the words

There is a sentence in Isaiah that people quote for comfort, and I want it for its scale, because every noun in it is small.

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.Isaiah 30:15

Repentance. Rest. Quietness. Trust.

Read those four again and notice that not one of them is an event. Not one of them requires an audience, a conversation, an announcement, or a resolved position on anything.

Two of them are literally the absence of activity.

Isaiah 30 names rest and quietness as the substance of the return rather than any public undertaking, and the Spirit put four small words in that sentence where a large one would have fit, so the enormous project you have been unable to begin has never once been what was being asked.

Now, come here, because I want to take something off you rather than add to it.

Your eleven-year plan is not wrong about human beings. There probably would be a conversation with your sister eventually. There probably would be some noticing.

But look at what you have done with the order. You have put the entire consequence in front of the first step, and then measured the first step by the weight of everything behind it. Isaiah 30 puts quietness and trust at the front of the sentence as the strength itself, and the Spirit was in that placing, so you are carrying a step nobody asked you to lift.

Nobody could take a step that heavy. You have not failed to move; you have been trying to lift eleven years in one motion.

Isaiah 30 puts quietness and trust at the front of the sentence as the strength itself, and the Spirit was in that placing, which means the small private beginning has always been available underneath the project you built.

And notice the ending, because it is where the tenderness is.

But you would have none of it. That is not a threat and it is not a shaming. It is grief. It is somebody watching a people refuse the small quiet thing and reach for something more impressive.

Isaiah 30 records the refusal of the quiet way as a sorrow rather than as an accusation, and the Spirit was in that grieving, so choosing something small today has never once been settling for a lesser return.