He is genuinely good at helping other people start things. That is the part that took him a while to see clearly.
He has been the second man on four different things in the last four years. He is the one people ring at nine on a Sunday night. He knows where the difficulties are, he knows what to check before you commit to anything, and he is never wrong about the thing that is going to go wrong in month five.
Everybody says he is a good man to have around, and they are right.
Four years ago he started something.
It ran for fourteen months. People knew about it. It had been announced properly, and there were people involved who had rearranged parts of their lives to be involved, and there was a stretch in the middle where it genuinely looked like it was going to work.
Then it folded.
Not spectacularly. There was no scandal in it, and nobody was hurt in any way that anyone could name, and it just did not sustain, and there came a Tuesday when he had to say so out loud to eleven people in a room.
They were good about it. Two of them cried, which he has never forgotten. Somebody said all the right things. Somebody else said, well, at least we tried, and he has never been able to decide whether that helped.
Four years.
He has not started anything since, and he has never once described it that way, because from the outside he looks like a man in the middle of everything. Four things. Second man on all four.
And he is very useful, and he means it, and he is not resentful.
But when a thing comes up that he could lead, there is a movement in him that happens before he has thought about it, a kind of stepping half a pace back, and by the time the conversation has moved on he has already recommended somebody else.
And the sentence under it, which he has never said out loud, is: I already had my go.
And you have a folded thing too. Something with your name on it that did not last, and you have been standing half a pace back from anything like it since.
Seven times, and the rising is the ordinary part
There is a proverb that gets quoted at people constantly, and the reason it works is not the encouragement, it is the arithmetic.
For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.Proverbs 24:16
Seven times.
Not once, tragically, and then a long careful life afterward. Seven. The proverb is describing a person whose life contains a whole series of these, and it does not treat that as a scandal or a pattern that needs explaining, and it does not attach the falling to any fault at all.
It calls that person righteous. Present tense. Mid-series.
You are described in that verse in the middle of the falling, and the word attached to you there is righteous. It is written that the righteous falls seven times and rises again (Proverbs 24:16), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a proverb about arithmetic into a release for a man who has been treating one fold as a complete account of himself.
Now the half pace back, because that is where four years went.
Notice how fast it is. It happens before thought, which means it is not a decision you have been making, it is a reflex you acquired in a room with eleven people in it on a Tuesday.
Reflexes are not convictions. They do not have to be argued with, and you cannot argue with them anyway because they arrive first. What they need is one contradiction in the body, which is a different kind of work.
You are not a man who has decided not to lead, you are a man carrying a reflex, and a reflex has no authority over you at all. Scripture says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Romans 12:2), and it is the Holy Spirit who does the renewing, which is why this is not a matter of you trying harder to feel differently.
And I already had my go, which is the sentence underneath.
Where would that rule come from. Nobody applies it to anything else. Nobody thinks a farmer who had one bad harvest has had his go at farming. The idea that a person is issued exactly one attempt is not in Scripture anywhere, and the men and women in it are almost all on their second or fourth or seventh.
You have not used up anything, and there is no allocation, and no register anywhere has your name in it with a line through it. It is written that His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), and it is His Spirit who makes new every morning mean this actual Wednesday rather than a general statement about God's kindness.
And the two who cried deserve a word, because they are the reason this has stuck.
You have carried them for four years as evidence of what you cost people. Consider the other reading. Two people cried because it had mattered to them, and it had mattered to them because you had made something worth caring about, and nobody cries over fourteen months of nothing.
You built something real enough to be grieved, and you have been reading their tears as an invoice for four years. Scripture says God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have shown (Hebrews 6:10), and it is the Holy Spirit who holds the true account of those fourteen months, which is not the account you have been keeping.
So notice the half pace, and do not move.
Not this week necessarily, and not on a large thing. Just notice it happening the next time, the small physical movement backward that comes before the thought, and stand still through it and see what your mouth does.
You had one attempt, and it lasted fourteen months, and it folded without scandal and without anybody being harmed, and eleven people were sorry.
That is not a disqualification. That is a fall, in a book that counts them to seven and then tells you what the righteous do afterward.
You are a man in the middle of the series that verse describes, and the next line of it is the rising. It is written that the righteous falls seven times and rises again (Proverbs 24:16), and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old line about counting land on a good man who has been standing half a pace back for four years without ever deciding to.
The four things you have helped start are not a consolation prize, incidentally. They are four things that exist. But they are not the whole of what you were made for, and you know it, and that is why the half pace still costs you something every time.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud with your hand open, in the hall or the kitchen or wherever the Sunday night phone calls come. You have the right to speak them because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that standing was given to you rather than earned by making something last. Scripture is the ground under every line and the Holy Spirit is what makes them live in a person. Speak first to the thing that folded, then to the sentence you have never said out loud about having had your go, then turn and speak to Him. Whatever He does next with your hands, the outcome is His to decide.
- Thing of mine that folded in public, you are one attempt and you are not a career. The Word counts a righteous man's falls to seven and calls him righteous in the middle of them, so you are number one and you do not get to be the last word.
- Half pace backward that happens before I have thought, you are broken off me in the name of Jesus. It is written to be transformed by the renewal of the mind, and the Spirit is the One who renews it, so you are not a conviction of mine and you never were.
- Lord, two people cried in that room because I had made something worth caring about, and I have been reading their tears as a bill for four years. My hand is open, nothing of mine is used up, and the next thing You put in it is Yours.
Proverbs 24:16
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
