I Am The One Who Would Have To Arrange It

It is not that you do not want to go.

It is that when somebody in this house says the word trip, a list appears behind your eyes, fully formed, and every item on it is yours. Where. When. What it costs. Who cannot eat what. Who has to be back for what. Whether the car makes it. Whether anybody actually enjoys it or whether you spend four days managing moods in an unfamiliar kitchen.

The list arrives before the wanting does. And by the time the wanting gets there, the list has already answered.

So you say, yes, we should, sometime. And you mean it. And nothing happens, and everybody in this house has quietly concluded that you are the one who does not want to go anywhere.

That is what I want to take apart today, because it is not true, and it has been costing you something for years.

You are not a man who has stopped wanting things. You are a man who is tired, and the specific kind of tired that comes from being the only person a plan can begin with.

Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone

There is a scene in Exodus that is almost never preached, and it is about a man doing too much and a relative who says so out loud.

Moses is sitting from morning to evening judging every dispute in the nation, one man against a line of people that does not end. His father in law watches for a day and then says this.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:18, King James Version)

Read what is actually being said, because it is more generous than it first sounds.

Jethro does not say Moses is doing it badly. He does not say the work is unnecessary, and he does not say Moses has the wrong attitude. He says the thing is too heavy, which is a statement about the weight and not about the man.

You have been carrying something the written word itself calls too heavy for one person, and that has never once been a verdict on your strength. Exodus 18:18 names the load before it names anything about the man carrying it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that sentence over a father at the end of an evening when nobody else in the house has thought to.

And notice the second half. Both thou, and this people that is with thee. The wearing away does not stop at the man. It reaches the people he is carrying, which is the part that will land for you, because you have felt them getting the worn out version of you and you have not known what to do about it.

That is not blame. That is Jethro being accurate.

You are not the reason this family goes nowhere, and the tiredness in you has never once been the same thing as unwillingness. It is written that the thing itself was too heavy, which is why the remedy in the chapter is other people rather than more effort, and His Spirit is the one who is honest with a man about his own load without accusing him of anything.

The remedy is not a better plan

Here is what Jethro tells him to do, and it is worth noticing what it is not.

He does not tell Moses to get up earlier. He does not tell him to be more organized, delegate better, or care less. He tells him to give the work to other people, actual named people, and to keep only the part that is genuinely his.

The remedy for too heavy is not a stronger back. It is fewer things in the hands.

And in a household, the first thing to come out of your hands is not the driving, or the money, or the packing. It is the deciding.

Because the deciding is the part that keeps you awake. The rest of it, once a day exists, is just work, and you have never been afraid of work. It is the open question with no edges that never lets you rest.

You are able to let the first decision belong to somebody else in this house, and that has never once meant the trip stops being yours. The Spirit of God is the one who releases a grip that has been closed so long the hand has forgotten it is closed, and Exodus 18 puts the answer in other people rather than in a better method.

So here is the thing I want to put to you, and I want you to notice how your chest responds to it.

Somebody else picks the day.

Not you. You do not offer three options and let them choose between your options, because that is still you doing it. Somebody else says a date, out loud, and you say fine.

You have permission to receive a plan instead of producing one, and receiving has never once been the lazy version of leading. Exodus 18:18 says the thing is too heavy for thee, and the same Spirit who moved Jethro to say it out loud is at work in a house where a father is about to ask for help for the first time.

Ask one person to pick the day

So here is the assignment, and I have made it as small as I can.

Ask one person in this house to pick the day.

Whoever is easiest to ask. Your wife, one of your children, whoever is in the room. The sentence is short: pick a Saturday in the next few weeks and tell me which one, and we will go somewhere.

And then here is the hard part, and it is the whole exercise. Do not improve their answer.

You are able to leave a decision alone that you can see three problems with, and leaving it alone has never once been the same thing as not caring. It is written that no man performs a thing like this alone, which is why the chapter hands real authority to other people rather than tasks, and the Holy Spirit is the one steadying a man while he keeps his mouth closed.

They will pick a day that is slightly wrong. Something is on that weekend, or the timing is awkward, or it is not the weekend you would have chosen. Let it stand anyway. A slightly wrong day that happens is worth more than a perfect day that does not.

Because what gets handed over here is not the logistics. Most of those will still end up with you, and that is fine. What gets handed over is the part that has been keeping this family home for four years, which is the requirement that you be the one who starts it.