I Cannot Decide Which Ten Words

You spent the whole ten minutes choosing.

You sat down at twenty past eight with the book and something open on the screen beside it, and you started trying to work out which ten. The most common ones, probably. Or the ones you would actually use with her, which is a different list. Or the ones in the chapter, since the chapter is presumably ordered for a reason.

And at half past you closed everything, having learned nothing, and the evening moved on.

This happens most nights, and you have started dreading the sitting down part, which is new.

Here is the thing underneath it, and I want to name it before anything else, because I think it has been read as indecision and it is not indecision.

It is care. You have ten minutes and you want them to count. You are treating those minutes as scarce and precious, which they genuinely are, and the fear is that if you choose the wrong ten you will have spent something you cannot get back on words that turn out not to matter.

That is not dithering. That is somebody taking a small amount of time seriously.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

The choosing is costing you more than a wrong choice ever could, and nobody has put those two amounts side by side for you.

A wrong ten costs you ninety seconds and gives you ten words you will probably meet again anyway. The choosing has cost you most evenings for a month. The thing you are protecting against is smaller than the protection.

So I am not going to tell you it does not matter which words you pick. It does matter, slightly. It matters far less than starting, and I would rather show you that than assert it.

Whithersoever thou goest

There is a sentence at the start of Joshua that is usually read as being about bravery, and the last clause of it is about something else.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. (Joshua 1:9, King James Version)

Whithersoever thou goest.

Stay on that word, because it is the one doing the work for you. Whithersoever means in whatever direction. Not on the correct route. Not once the right path has been identified. Wherever he ends up going, the presence goes with him.

You have somebody going with you down whichever list you pick, and a route chosen without certainty has never once been a route taken alone. Joshua 1:9 attaches the presence to the going rather than to the choosing, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a woman who closed everything again at half past eight.

Now notice what Joshua is actually being sent into, because the situation matters.

Unmapped country. He has no route. The whole assignment is to go into a land he has not walked, and the promise does not include a map. It includes company, in any direction, which is a completely different kind of assurance.

You were never promised the right list first, and going without a map has never once been the same as going wrong. The Holy Spirit is the one who goes in whatever direction a careful woman finally moves, and Joshua 1:9 offers company rather than a route.

And here is the third thing, which is about fear and where the verse puts it.

Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. Those are not commands about battle particularly. Dismayed is the word for standing still with the weight of a decision on you, and the verse addresses a man who has to move without knowing, and tells him that the not knowing is not the thing to be afraid of.

You have been standing still under the weight of a choice, and a decision made without certainty has never once been a careless one. Joshua 1:9 speaks to somebody who must move before he knows, and the Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has started dreading eight o'clock.

Any ten is the right ten

Here is the practical half, and it is going to sound like a trick until I show you why it is true.

Any ten words will do, and here is the mechanism rather than the reassurance.

Words are not independent items. They come in families and they share pieces, and the common ones are common precisely because they attach to everything. So whichever ten you take tonight, most of them will be joined to other words you will meet later, and the ones that turn out to be rare will simply be met less often and will quietly fall away without costing you anything.

The list sorts itself by use. You do not have to sort it in advance.

You have been doing a job by hand that the language does on its own, and no ten words has ever once been a wasted ninety seconds. The Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has spent a month choosing, and Joshua 1:9 puts the promise on the going rather than on picking correctly.

Now here is the second thing, which is about where the ten come from.

Do not build a list. Open the thing you already have and take the first ten you do not know. That is the entire method, and it removes the decision completely, because the page has already decided.

That sounds arbitrary and it is arbitrary, and arbitrary is exactly what is needed here. An arbitrary rule is a decision made once, in advance, that never has to be made again, and it is the only thing that gets a careful person past a door like this one.

You have permission to let a page choose for you, and a rule decided once has never once had to be defended every evening. Joshua 1:9 sends a man into unmapped country with company rather than with a route, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a careful woman to open it anywhere.

And here is what the choosing has really been protecting, said plainly.

While the deciding is still going on, nothing has yet been done badly. Choosing is the last moment where the evening could still turn out to be perfect, and starting is the moment it becomes ordinary and imperfect and real.

That is not laziness. That is somebody who wants this to go well enough to be frightened of it going ordinarily.

You were never going to get a perfect evening out of this, and an ordinary ten minutes has never once been worth less than a perfect nothing. The Spirit of God is the one with a woman protecting an evening from becoming real, and the written word tells somebody to be strong and go, without ever handing over the map.

Open it anywhere and take the first ten

So here is the assignment, and it has a rule in it that you never revisit.

Learn ten words today, then close the book and do not add more.

The rule is this. Open it anywhere. Take the first ten words on that page you do not already know. Say each one out loud. Shut it.

No list. No screen open beside it. No checking whether these are the useful ones, because that check is the whole of the last month.

You have a rule now that does the choosing for you, and a page opened at random has never once produced ten worthless words. Joshua 1:9 gives company in whatever direction rather than a correct path, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who opened it without deciding.

And here is what to do with the discomfort, because it will arrive immediately.

It will feel careless. It will feel like the wrong ten, and there will be a strong pull toward checking whether a better set exists two pages over, and that pull is the same one that has eaten every evening this month.

Name it and go on. Say out loud, if it helps: these ten are the ten. Four words, two seconds, and the decision is closed for the night. Then finish and shut the book, because ten is the whole assignment and the evening owes you nothing further.

You have permission to close the question for tonight, and a decision made once out loud has never once needed making again at word six. The Spirit of God is the one who settles a careful woman after ninety seconds, and Joshua 1:9 tells somebody not to be dismayed and then sends him.