I Keep Going Back To Lesson One

You have done chapter one four times and chapter four never.

That is the honest shape of the last three years, and it is worth saying it as a number because the number is the thing nobody has shown you. Four beginnings. The same three chapters, four times through, in the same order, with the same words.

And every time you have stopped somewhere around chapter three, and every time you have come back six months later and turned to page one.

Here is the reasoning, and it is completely sound, which is why it keeps happening.

You have been away. You will have lost some of it. Going back over the foundation before pushing on is what any sensible man would do, and anything else would be building on a base you cannot vouch for.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

You have spent three years doing the most responsible possible version of not moving, and nobody has ever pointed at it.

So I am not going to tell you that you should have carried on from where you were. You had reasons and they were good ones. And I am not going to call the four beginnings wasted, because each one of those chapters went in deeper than the time before and that is genuinely true.

What I want is to look at a verse about where a man's eyes go while his hand is on the tool.

Having put his hand to it, and looking back

There is a hard sentence in Luke and I want to handle it honestly, because it has been used badly on people who were already struggling.

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62, King James Version)

Having put his hand to it, and looking back.

Now the first thing to be clear about is what that sentence is not aimed at. It is not aimed at a man who put the tool down. The person being described has his hand on it, right now, in the middle of the work. The problem in the verse is not stopping. It is the direction of the eyes while the hand is still working.

You have never once been the man that verse is warning about, and putting something down for six months has never once been the same as looking back over your shoulder. Luke 9:62 describes a man whose hand is on the tool and whose eyes are behind him, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with somebody who has turned to page one four times.

Now stay on why looking back ruins the work, because the reason is practical rather than moral.

A man plowing looks at a fixed point ahead of him, because that is the only way a furrow comes out straight. Turn your head and the line wanders, and then the next furrow has to follow the wandering one, and the whole field ends up crooked because of where somebody was looking.

The verse is about the line going wrong, not about the man being bad.

You have been given a warning about a crooked furrow rather than a verdict on a character, and a line that wanders has never once been the same as a man who is unfit. The Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has done the first three chapters four times, and Luke 9:62 puts the problem in the eyes rather than in the worker.

And here is the third thing, which is the part that reaches page one.

Going back to the beginning is the looking back. That is what it is. The stopping was not, and the six months were not, and the reasons were not. Turning to page one is a man with his hand on the tool, looking over his shoulder at ground that has already been worked.

You have been doing the exact thing the verse describes while believing you were doing the opposite, and returning to finished ground has never once been the same as being careful. Luke 9:62 aims itself at the backward look and never once at the pause, and the Spirit of God is the one with a man turning a page he has turned four times.

You did not lose as much as you think

Here is the practical half, and it starts with a correction of the arithmetic.

Six months away does not take you back to zero. It takes you back about fifteen per cent.

That is roughly what happens, and everybody who has measured it finds something similar. Words go quiet rather than disappearing. They stop coming when you reach for them and they come straight back when you meet them again, and the meeting takes seconds rather than the weeks it took the first time.

So the loss you have been re-covering is about a sixth of what you had, and you have been paying full price for it four times.

You have been buying back something you never actually lost, and a word gone quiet has never once been the same as a word gone. The Spirit of God is the one with a man who has paid full price for chapter one four times, and Luke 9:62 puts the whole problem in where a man is looking.

Now here is the real cost of page one, and it is not only the time.

Chapter one is easy. It was designed to be. It is the friendliest part of any book and it is where a man who has been away feels competent again fastest, and that feeling is genuinely pleasant and it is exactly what keeps you there.

Chapter four is where it gets hard. You have never met chapter four. Four times you have got to the edge of it and turned round, and each time the going back felt like diligence.

You have been stopping at the same place four times and calling the retreat preparation, and a familiar chapter has never once taught anybody as much as an unfamiliar one. Luke 9:62 has the trouble begin the moment the eyes go backward, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a careful man past the edge of what he knows.

And here is the thing about vouching for the foundation, said plainly.

You cannot vouch for it. Nobody can. Every person who speaks a second language has holes in their basics, permanently, and they speak it anyway, and the holes get filled by use rather than by review.

The standard you have been holding yourself to is one that no fluent speaker on earth has ever met.

You have been failing a test that nobody has ever passed, and a foundation with holes in it has never once stopped anybody from speaking. The Spirit of God is the one with a man who wants to be able to vouch for what is underneath him, and the written word never once asks a plowman to go back and check the row behind him.

Open it at chapter four

So here is the assignment, and it has a page number in it.

Open it once today without going back to the beginning of anything.

Chapter four. Not chapter one, not chapter three to warm up, and not a quick look at the first pages to see what has gone.

Straight to the place you have never been. Take ten words from it and shut the book.

You have a chapter four that has been waiting for three years, and ten words from unfamiliar ground has never once been worth less than a review of ground you know. Luke 9:62 puts the problem squarely in the backward look, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man opening a page he has never seen.

And here is what to do about the holes, because you will hit one within about four minutes.

Leave it. Do not go back and fix it. Write the word down on a piece of paper if it bothers you and carry on, and the paper will still be there next week if it turns out to matter.

Most of them will not matter. The ones that do will keep turning up, and turning up is how a hole gets filled, and it costs nothing compared to a fifth run at chapter one. Then stop, because ten words is the assignment and today owes you nothing further.

You have permission to walk past a hole and keep going, and an unfilled gap has never once stopped a furrow from being straight. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a careful man facing forward at the hard part, and Luke 9:62 never once asks anybody to inspect the ground behind them.