It was working badly and now it is not working at all.
That is the outcome, and there is no softening it and no point trying. You watched something, you got a screwdriver, you had a go, and at the end of the afternoon the machine was in a worse state than it had been at lunchtime.
And the thing that has been built out of that afternoon is enormous, and it was built in about two hours, and it is this: I should not touch things.
Not this thing. Things. A general rule, arrived at from one attempt, and it will now sit quietly over every similar moment for the next twenty years.
That is a very large conclusion from a single afternoon, and it is worth examining before it settles, because conclusions like that one are extremely difficult to remove once they have been in place for a while.
You are a woman who tried something and it went badly and not a woman who should not try, and one afternoon that went wrong has never once been a ruling about everything after it.
When I fall, I shall arise
There is a short defiant sentence in Micah, and both halves of it are spoken by the same person about the same life.
Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. (Micah 7:8, King James Version)
When I fall, I shall arise.
Not if. When. The falling is built into the sentence as an expected feature of a life, and the arising is put right beside it, in the same breath, by the same speaker.
There is no interval in there for concluding things about oneself. The two clauses are joined directly, and nothing is allowed to get in between them.
You are inside a sentence that puts the getting up immediately beside the falling, and an afternoon that went badly has never once been given room in Scripture to become a rule. Micah 7:8 joins the two clauses with nothing in between, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody sitting on a kitchen floor at the end of an afternoon.
And notice who he is speaking to: rejoice not against me, O mine enemy.
He is speaking to something that is enjoying his failure. And what he says to it is not a defense of himself and not an explanation of what went wrong. It is: do not celebrate yet, because this is not the end of the sentence.
You are able to speak to the thing that has been enjoying this, and a voice in a kitchen that has been making a rule out of one afternoon has never once been entitled to the last word. The written word has a man addressing the gloating directly, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a woman something to say back to it.
And then: when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.
He does not claim he will not sit in darkness. He assumes he will. The claim is about who will be there in it, and the darkness is treated as a location rather than as a verdict.
You are sitting somewhere rather than being told something, and a dark stretch after a failed attempt has never once been a message about the person sitting in it. Micah 7:8 makes the darkness a place with God in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present on a kitchen floor at five in the afternoon.
What the afternoon actually proved
Something practical, and it is about scope.
The afternoon proved one thing: that particular repair, attempted with that level of knowledge, with those tools, on that machine, did not go well.
That is the entire content of the evidence. It is a narrow, specific, one time result.
What has been extracted from it is a general statement about your capability across all household tasks for the rest of your life, which is a conclusion about ten thousand future situations drawn from one sample.
You have drawn something enormous out of something narrow, and one failed attempt has never once contained enough information to rule on everything that comes after it. The written word puts the falling and the rising in one sentence without a verdict between them, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds the size of a thing steady.
Now here is the honest part, because this article is not going to pretend the afternoon was fine.
It cost something. The repair is more expensive now than it would have been, and somebody will have to be told, and that is a real consequence and it is not being waved away.
But a cost is not a verdict. People who are excellent at things have made worse mistakes than this and made them in front of more people.
You were paying a cost and not receiving a verdict, and an expensive afternoon has never once been the same thing as a judgment about a person. Micah 7:8 says when I fall, and calls the falling ordinary, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a cost from being read as a sentence.
So try a smaller thing this week. Not the same thing again, which would be brave and unnecessary. Something smaller, chosen specifically because it cannot be made worse.
Change a filter. Clean out the thing that traps lint. Reset the trip switch. Look inside something and put it back. A task with no downside, done on purpose, this week.
You have a whole category of small jobs in this house that cannot be made worse, and a task chosen for having no downside has never once been a task that proved nothing. Micah 7:8 joins the rising straight to the falling, and the Holy Spirit is the one in the kitchen while a small thing gets finished.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman sitting on a kitchen floor with a screwdriver beside her.
You are a woman who tried something and it went badly and not a woman who should not try, and one afternoon that went wrong has never once been a ruling about everything after it. I am not telling you the repair is cheap and I am not telling you it will go well next time. Micah 7:8 puts the arising right beside the falling with nothing in between, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who is on that floor.
And this, which is the word I actually came with:
You are sitting in a place rather than under a sentence, and darkness that a person sits in has never once been described in that verse as a thing that speaks. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the dark stretch itself, and the written word said when I fall, which means the falling was expected all along and was never the news.
One smaller thing. This week. Nine minutes.
Declare this over yourself
- Rule I wrote on the kitchen floor, you were never once earned and one afternoon did not qualify you. Micah 7:8 says when I fall, I shall arise, so by the Holy Spirit I try one smaller thing this week, in the name of Jesus.
- Voice enjoying an afternoon that went wrong, you have no standing and you do not get the last word. The written word has a man telling the gloating not to celebrate because the sentence is not finished, and by the Holy Spirit I say the same thing back to you.
- Father, You put the falling and the rising in one breath and You left no room in between them. Your word says when I fall, I shall arise, so by Your Spirit I do one small finished thing this week, and I say out loud that I did it.
Micah 7:8
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