The jar sits at the back of the counter by the window and it does not do anything.
Flour and water. That is the whole thing. Her neighbor gave her a spoonful of hers in a jam jar and told her to feed it and leave it alone, and she has been feeding it since February and she has not managed the second half of that instruction once.
She looks at it about nine times a day.
Sometimes there are bubbles. Sometimes there are not, and then she stands there with her hand on the counter working out whether it is dead. She has looked up whether it is dead four separate times. She has smelled it more than anybody should smell anything.
And she said something to her daughter on the phone in April that she has thought about ever since, which is: I do not know how to have something that only works if I stop watching it.
Because it is not really about the jar.
She is sixty-two and she came back to God four years ago after a long time away, and she is doing everything she was told. She reads in the morning. She goes. She has told the truth to two people about things she had not told anybody.
And she checks. That is what she does. Every few days, sometimes every day, she takes the lid off herself and looks in and tries to work out whether anything is happening in there.
And there is never anything to see. Some days there are bubbles. Most days there are not, and then she stands with her hand on the counter working out whether it is dead.
One plants, one waters, and neither of them is the one who does it
Let me say the plain thing about the checking first, because it does not come from a bad place.
You check because you care whether it is real. Four years back after a long time away, and you are not going to be one of those people who assumes everything is fine and finds out at seventy that it never was. The checking is diligence pointed at the wrong dial. It is not vanity and it is not unbelief.
But hear this, and take it finished rather than as comfort: the growth was never yours to produce or to inspect. You have not been failing at something you were supposed to be doing. That is not my gentle framing of an anxious four years, it is what stands written to the Corinthians, where Paul divides the whole work into three parts and gives himself the smallest one, and the same Holy Spirit who carried that letter has been at work in the back of that jar and in the back of you.
Read how he settles an argument about who was responsible for a church growing.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.1 Corinthians 3:6-7
Two men worked hard and neither of them is credited with one inch of it.
That is not a demotion, it is a relief. Planting and watering are real jobs and they are the jobs given to people, and there is a third job that is not on offer to anybody and never has been.
You have been trying to hold all three. Reading in the morning is watering. Telling the truth to two people is watering. Going is watering. And then you take the lid off to check on the growth, which is the one part that was never assigned to you, and there is nothing to see because you are looking for somebody else's work with the wrong instrument.
This is yours right now rather than something to reach: the growth is happening and it is His to do, because the written word says God is the one who makes things grow, and the Spirit of God does not require your supervision to keep at it.
Now the practical part, and it is the thing your neighbor actually told you.
Feed it and leave it alone.
The leaving alone is not idleness. It is the second half of the instruction and it is doing work. A jar opened nine times a day is a jar losing heat, taking in whatever is in the room, and being disturbed at exactly the point when nothing should be disturbing it. The watching is not neutral. It costs the thing being watched.
And it costs you, because a person who lifts the lid on their own soul every day will find nothing every day, and after four years of finding nothing you begin to draw a conclusion. What is written is that the kingdom grows while the man sleeps, and the Holy Spirit has never once asked anybody to verify Him hourly.
So put the lid down.
Not because checking is a sin and not because you have been doing it all wrong for four years. Put it down because the dial you are reading was never wired to anything, and every day you read it you get a false negative and then carry it around.
You are growing. That is true of you today rather than pending a good week, because Scripture says God is the one who makes things grow and does not put that job in anybody else's hands, and the Holy Spirit has been doing it in the middle of the days that felt like nothing.
Do the parts that are yours. Water it. Read in the morning, go, tell the truth to the two people. Those are real and they matter and they are not nothing.
And then let it alone, which is the harder half. Give it a week. When your hand goes toward the lid, out of habit, put the kettle on instead.
Because at some point, and not on a date anybody can give you, you will go to that jar and it will be up over the line and you will not have seen it happen. And the same will be true of you.
Declare this over yourself
Then say these out loud. Know what they stand on: this authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King and not as a woman checking her own work. Every line rests on what is already written, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries it, never the sound of your own voice. You speak under His will, never over it, and however He answers, the outcome is His.
- Habit of lifting the lid, you are done for today. Paul planted and Apollos watered and God gave the growth, so the one job I have been checking on was never handed to me.
- Fear that four years of finding nothing means there is nothing in there, get out, in the name of Jesus. A jar opened nine times a day loses its heat, and I have been reading a dial that was never wired to anything.
- Lord, You are the One who makes things grow, and You have been doing it through every day I wrote off. I am feeding it and leaving it alone, and when my hand goes to the lid I am putting the kettle on instead.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7
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