When Things Calm Down We Will Go

Six years ago you started saying it, and you have said it every year since.

When things calm down, we will go somewhere.

And every single time, you have meant it. There was nothing dishonest in it. You said it during the year with the illness in it, and the year with the move, and the year the work went wrong, and the year the baby was small, and the year with the exams. And every one of those was a genuine reason. Not one of them was an excuse.

But six years is long enough to look at, and when you look at six years the picture changes.

Because those were not interruptions to an otherwise calm life. That was the life. That is what a household with people in it is actually like, and the calm year you have been waiting for has not been late. It was never scheduled.

I am not saying that to be hard with you. I am saying it because the waiting itself has quietly become the decision, and nobody ever chose it out loud.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow

There is a line in Ecclesiastes about a farmer watching the weather, and it is the most practical sentence in the Bible about this exact problem.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. (Ecclesiastes 11:4, King James Version)

Read it carefully, because it is not telling you to be reckless.

A farmer who watches the wind is not lazy and is not foolish. He is being careful. Wind matters when seed is being cast by hand. Clouds matter when a harvest is coming in. Both of those are real considerations and the verse does not pretend otherwise.

What the verse says is that a person who waits for the conditions will never do the thing. Not because the conditions do not matter, but because there is always wind, and there are always clouds, and the day with neither does not arrive.

You are not being irresponsible by planning inside a difficult year, and every reason you had for waiting has never once been the same thing as a decision to wait. Ecclesiastes 11:4 puts the problem in the watching rather than in the weather, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a mother the difference between a careful year and a lost one.

And notice what the whole chapter goes on to say. Cast thy bread upon the waters. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight. Sow in the morning and in the evening, because you do not know which will prosper.

The instruction is not wait until you can be sure. The instruction is act more often, in more places, with less certainty.

You are allowed to act without being sure it works, and doing something small in an unsettled season has never once required you to know how it turns out. It is written that the one who watches the clouds never reaps, which is why the chapter answers with sowing twice a day rather than sowing better, and the Spirit of God is what moves a hand that has been waiting for a clear sky.

That is the opposite of how you have been running this. You have been holding back one big plan until conditions justify it, which means you have all your weight on a single day that keeps not arriving.

You have permission to spread this out instead of saving it up, and one afternoon in a hard month has never once been a lesser thing than a week in a good one. The Holy Spirit is the one who releases a mother from the idea that a trip has to be earned by circumstances, and Ecclesiastes 11 puts the sowing in the morning and again in the evening.

The noise is not going to end

Now the honest part, and I want to say it kindly because it is the part that stings.

There is no calm week coming.

Not next spring, not after this thing resolves, not when the youngest is older. There will be a different set of things. Some of them will be easier and some of them will be harder, and the total volume of noise in a house with children in it stays roughly constant until they leave, and then it is replaced by a quiet you will not enjoy as much as you expect.

So the question is not how do we get to a calm season. The question is what does this family do inside a normal one.

You are able to plan something in a week that has nothing settled in it, and unsettled has never once meant unavailable. It is written that the man watching the wind never sows at all, and His Spirit is the one who gives a woman the nerve to write something down while the house is still loud around her.

And here is the freeing part of it. If you stop waiting for calm, the size of the plan drops immediately, because a small thing survives a difficult week and a large thing does not.

An afternoon survives a bad Tuesday. A week away has to be defended against everything that happens between now and it. That is why every big plan has died and why nothing small has ever been tried.

You are able to choose something small enough that this week cannot kill it, and small has never once been the version of going you settle for. Ecclesiastes 11 has a man sowing twice in one day rather than once in a perfect one, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a two hour outing count as fully as anything.

Plan one thing, without waiting

So here is the assignment.

Plan one thing this week without waiting for anything to settle first.

Not when the appointment is over. Not after this month. This week, with everything exactly as unresolved as it currently is.

And here is the test of whether you have made it small enough. It should be a thing that could still happen on a day when somebody is unwell, somebody is behind on work, and nobody has slept. If it could not survive that, it is not small enough, because that is a realistic description of most days in this house.

You are able to build something that survives a bad morning, and planning around what is true has never once been the same thing as expecting less. The Spirit of God is with a woman who plans in the middle of noise rather than in the quiet she was promised, and it is written that the sower goes out in the morning and again in the evening without waiting for the weather.

So: a place, a day, and an hour, written where somebody else can see it. Somewhere near enough that getting there is not part of the plan. Two hours is plenty.

Then let it be under sized on purpose. That is not lowering a standard. That is sowing in the morning and in the evening, which is what the chapter actually asks for.