I Do Not Know Where The Water Shutoff Is

Water was coming from under the sink and you opened the cabinet.

And you looked at it. Properly. For a while.

There were pipes and there was a thing with a handle and there was a thing with a different handle, and there was a general arrangement down there that made sense to somebody once, and you knelt in front of it holding a flashlight and you did not know which one to turn.

Then you closed the cabinet and rang somebody.

And it is that, and not the water, that has been sitting there since. You are forty one years old and you have owned this house for nine years and you do not know where the water shuts off.

Now, the sentence that is running underneath that, and it is running whether or not it has been noticed, goes something like: what kind of man does not know that.

So we are going to deal with the sentence rather than the plumbing, because the plumbing is a four minute job and the sentence has been running for years.

You are a man who was never shown and not a man who is incapable, and never having been taught a thing has never once been the same as being unable to learn it.

With all thy getting get understanding

There is a line in Proverbs about acquiring knowledge, and the verb it uses is the useful part.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7, King James Version)

Get understanding.

Get. Acquire. Go and obtain. That is a word about something a person did not previously have and is now going out to fetch.

The whole verse assumes a starting position of not having it. It does not say keep understanding, or protect the understanding you were given, or remember what you were taught. It says get, which is the verb you use about something that is currently elsewhere.

You are being told to go and get something rather than being asked why you do not have it, and a man who does not yet know a thing has never once been outside the position that verse assumes. The Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody kneeling in front of an open cabinet, and Proverbs 4:7 says get and assumes the lack.

And notice: with all thy getting.

That phrase means whatever else you are acquiring. Whatever else a life is accumulating. There is no suggestion that the person being addressed is idle or careless. They are already getting things, and the instruction is about what to add to the pile.

You have been acquiring things your whole working life and this is one more, and a man adding a piece of practical knowledge has never once been starting from nothing. The written word assumes a person already busy getting, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes the next thing gettable.

And the ordering matters: wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.

Therefore. The instruction follows from the value rather than from the shame. Nobody in that verse is being shamed into learning. They are being told a thing is worth having and then told to go and have it.

You are being moved by the worth of a thing rather than by embarrassment about not having it, and knowledge worth acquiring has never once been acquired better because somebody felt foolish first. The Holy Spirit is the one who removes the embarrassment from a practical task, and Proverbs 4:7 argues from the value.

Not knowing is not not being able

Something practical, and it is a distinction that has been collapsing for years.

Not knowing where the water shuts off is a gap in information. It is four minutes of looking and one piece of knowledge that then stays known for the rest of your life.

Not being able is a statement about a person's capacity, and it is a completely different kind of thing.

Those two have been welded together in your head and they are not related at all. A man who runs a department, or drives a truck, or holds a trade, is plainly capable. He simply has not been shown one thing.

You have been treating not knowing as not being able, and a missing piece of information has never once been evidence about what a man is capable of. The written word tells people to go and get understanding on the assumption that they can, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates a gap from a verdict.

Now why it feels the way it does at forty one, because the age is doing real work here.

At twenty two, not knowing something is expected and nobody thinks about it. At forty one, not knowing the same thing feels like a thing that should have been dealt with by now, and so the not knowing gets hidden rather than fixed, and hiding it guarantees it stays.

That is the actual mechanism and it has nothing to do with capability. It is a man protecting himself from a question, and the protection is what keeps the gap open.

You are able to stop protecting a gap and simply close it, and four minutes with a flashlight has never once been too late to spend at any age. The Holy Spirit is the one in the cabinet doorway with a man and a light, and Proverbs 4:7 has no age in it anywhere.

So go and find it. Tonight. On your own if that is easier, and it probably is easier, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Under the sink, or where the pipe comes into the house, or in the basement near the meter. It is a valve with a handle or a lever, and turning it clockwise shuts it. That is the whole of the knowledge and it takes longer to read about than to learn.