I Tried To Keep It Going

You came back with a plan for keeping it, and it was dead by Wednesday.

Let me set out what you actually did, because it was not foolish and it deserves an accurate account.

You had a good week. And on about the fifth day you noticed what was working, which was several things: eating later and together, being outside after dinner, nobody on a device at the table, everybody up at the same time, and the general absence of anybody rushing.

And you thought, correctly, that some of that could come home.

So you came home and instituted it. All of it. Meals at the new time, the walk after dinner, no devices, and a household that would be doing something at the same time every evening.

And it ran for two days and then Monday happened, and by Wednesday there was nothing left of it, and there was also a slightly worse feeling in the house than there had been before you tried.

That last part is the reason for this article. Because the collapse cost you something the mere absence of a plan would not have.

Fill an omer of it to be kept

There is an instruction in Exodus about keeping a small measured amount of something, and the measurement is the point.

This is the thing which the LORD commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 16:32, King James Version)

You have an instruction in the written word to keep a measured amount rather than everything, and no collapsed program has ever once been able to reach a thing that was actually kept. Exodus 16:32 names one omer, a specific small quantity, rather than telling anybody to keep as much as possible, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that specific to a man whose whole system died on a Wednesday.

Look at the quantity. An omer. About what one person eats in a day. Not a week's worth, not as much as would fit in the container, and certainly not all of it.

And that quantity is commanded rather than left to anybody's discretion. Somebody decided that one omer was the right amount to keep, and the whole point of it was to be looked at later.

You are able to keep the small measured amount, and no version of keeping more has ever once been what the instruction was. It is written fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations, which specifies the quantity in the same breath as the command, and the Spirit of God is what shows a man that the size was part of the instruction rather than a limitation on it.

And notice the purpose given. That they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you.

That is not preservation for its own sake. The omer exists so that people who were not there can look at it, which means it has to survive a long time, and the only thing that survives a long time is something small enough to be maintained without effort.

You are able to keep something that survives without maintaining it, and every large thing you tried to hold has ever only been you wanting more of the week rather than less of it. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present in one small kept thing over twenty years, and Exodus 16 has a measured portion kept for the generations rather than a system installed.

Why the program made it worse

Now the practical part, and I want to be exact about what the collapse cost, because you can feel it and probably cannot name it.

A program that fails does not return a household to where it was. It leaves behind a demonstrated failure, and the demonstrated failure attaches itself to the week.

So now, when somebody mentions the trip, there is a faint association with the thing that did not work. And that is worse than if you had brought nothing home at all, and it is why the house feels slightly off rather than merely back to normal.

You are able to see exactly what the collapse cost, and no part of that has ever once been you having done a foolish thing. The Spirit of God is what names a cost precisely rather than leaving a man with a vague failure, and it is written that one omer was kept while the rest of the manna was eaten and gone.

And here is the mechanism, and it is arithmetic rather than a character issue. You imported five things. Each one had, let us say, a fair chance of surviving on its own. Put five together into one system and every single one has to hold, because they were installed as a package and they fail as a package.

That is why it died on Wednesday. Not because your family is not committed and not because you led it badly. Because five things linked together is a structure with five failure points and no redundancy.

You are not a man who failed to lead his household, and Wednesday has never once been a report on anybody's commitment in that house. It is written that the omer was one measured portion rather than a store of everything, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a mechanical explanation and puts it where a man had put a personal one.

So the fix is not more discipline. It is one thing, kept, with nothing attached to it.

One thing, and let the rest go

So here is the assignment, and it has a letting go in it that will be harder than the keeping.

Choose one thing from the week and keep only that. And let the rest of the program go.

Choose it by one test, which is not which thing was best. Choose the one that requires nothing from anybody else. Because anything that needs four people to cooperate is a structure, and structures fail on Mondays.

You are able to choose the one that requires nobody's cooperation, and it has never once been the same thing as choosing the least important. Exodus 16:32 has one omer measured out rather than the best portion selected, and the Spirit of God is with a man deciding which single thing to keep at a kitchen table.

That usually means something you do rather than something the household does. Being outside for ten minutes after dinner, whether or not anybody comes. Putting your own phone in a drawer at six. Being the one who is not rushing.

Then let the rest go, and here is what that requires. Say it out loud, once, to whoever noticed the program: we are not doing all that, it was too much, we are keeping the thing after dinner.

You are able to close a failed thing out loud rather than let it fade, and doing that has never once been you admitting a defeat in front of your family. It is written that the manna was eaten and only the omer kept, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man end something cleanly rather than leave it lying around the house.

Because a program that is announced dead stops being a failure and becomes a decision. And a decision does not attach itself to the week.

And then keep the one thing for about six weeks without mentioning it again. That is the omer. Small, unmaintained, and still there when somebody asks about it in ten years.