Waiting For Certainty

Marion has a rule and she has never once said it out loud, and she only found it about a year ago.

The rule is: I do not move until I am sure.

It sounds sensible. It has sounded sensible to her since she was about twenty-five, and she has built a fairly good life on it, and it has kept her out of two or three things that would have been genuine mistakes.

But she found it last year, properly, when a friend asked her a question about something she had been considering for four years, and Marion said, without thinking, I just want to be sure first.

And the friend, who is not tactful, said: sure of what?

And Marion opened her mouth and could not fill in the blank.

That is when she went and did the arithmetic. She is fifty-eight. She went back through the decisions of her adult life, the real ones, and counted how many times certainty had actually turned up before she moved.

The answer, as far as she could tell, was none.

Every genuine decision she has ever made, she made without being sure. The house. The job in 2009. Leaving the job in 2016. Not one of them came with the feeling she has been waiting for, and in every case she moved because a deadline forced her hand or somebody else decided or the option quietly expired.

Which means the rule has never once been followed. It has only ever been used to delay, and then circumstances have done the deciding, and she has called that being led.

She is not proud of noticing this and she has told nobody.

You may have a rule you have never said out loud.

Maybe yours is about certainty too. Maybe you would call it wisdom or prudence or waiting on God, and maybe some of it genuinely is, and maybe you have never once been able to fill in sure of what.

The verse everybody has, and the clause nobody reads

There is a sentence in Proverbs on every card and every fridge magnet, and the middle clause is the one for you.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.Proverbs 3:5-6

Lean not unto thine own understanding.

Now, that is usually read as a warning against being clever. Do not think too much. Do not rely on your own reasoning.

But look at the verb, because it is doing something more precise. Lean. Put your weight on. It is a word about what is holding you up, not about whether you use your mind.

And what have you been leaning on for thirty-three years? Not your reasoning. You have been leaning on a feeling of certainty that you have been waiting to receive, and you have made it the thing that has to hold your weight before you will move.

That is your own understanding in the exact sense the verse means it. It is an internal state of yours being asked to be the floor.

And you are not required to be sure before you can move. The written word forbids leaning on your own understanding and offers the directing instead, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my paragraph who makes that reach a woman who has never once been able to fill in the blank.

And what has been holding you up was never that feeling. The word says trust in the LORD with all thine heart, which puts the weight somewhere outside you entirely, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit rather than producing a sensation for you to stand on.

What the directing is attached to

Now look at the last clause, because the order in it matters and almost everybody reverses it.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

The acknowledging is in your ways. Plural, ongoing, in motion. And the directing is what happens as a result.

It does not say: stand still until you are directed, and then have ways. It says the ways are already happening and He directs them.

Which means the directing you have been waiting to receive before setting out is described here as something that happens to a person who is already going somewhere.

And you are being directed rather than dispatched. The word attaches the directing to the ways rather than putting it in front of them, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a real order of operations rather than an encouragement.

And you have not been unled for thirty-three years. The word says he shall direct thy paths, and the Spirit is the one who did that through every deadline and every expired option that you have been quietly embarrassed about.

What the rule was for

Let me say the kind thing now, because I do not want you to hear an accusation.

The rule kept you out of two or three real mistakes. You said so and I believe you. It has done a job.

And underneath the job there is something else, which is that a person who never moves until she is sure can never be blamed for having moved. It is a very effective arrangement for a woman who is frightened of being the one who got it wrong.

That fear is not silly. Being wrong costs something.

But the arrangement has cost you four years on one thing, and thirty-three on the pattern, and it has never once delivered what it promised, because the certainty it was waiting for has not turned up in a single instance.

And nothing about you is under review for the years. The word says there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, and the Spirit supplies that to a woman who has just done some unflattering arithmetic and told nobody.