Everything On It Feels Equally Urgent

Ask yourself which one matters most and time how long it takes.

Most men in this position cannot answer it at all. Not because they have not thought about it. Because every item on that list has a reason attached to it that makes it the most important one, and all of those reasons are real.

The gate matters because of the dog. The gutter matters because of the winter. The thing in the roof space matters because of what happens if it is left. The shelf matters because it was promised.

Every one of those is a genuine reason and none of them is stronger than the others, and so the list is flat, and a flat list is not a list at all.

A list has an order in it. That is what makes it a list rather than a pile. What is in that drawer is a pile with lines drawn between the items, and nobody can start on a pile, because starting requires a first item and a pile does not have one.

You are a man with a flat list, and a page where everything ranks the same has never once been a page anybody could act on.

But one thing is needful

There is a moment in Luke where a woman with a great deal to do gets an answer she did not expect, and the whole of it turns on a number.

But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:42, King James Version)

But one thing is needful.

One. That is the word doing the work, and it is doing it against a background of many.

And it is worth being careful about what is happening in that house. Martha was not being scolded for working. The meal was real, the guests were real, and nothing in the passage says the work did not matter or that she should have let the house go.

What she is told is that among the many things, one is needful. A number is being named, and the number is one.

You have a passage that names one thing against a background of many, and being busy with real work has never once been the thing that was corrected there. Luke 10:42 says one rather than saying none, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that a matter of ranking rather than of worth.

And notice how the many are described just before it. Careful and troubled about many things. Careful there means full of care, weighed down by it.

The trouble is granted. Nobody says she was imagining the pressure. The pressure was real and the many things were real, and the answer offered was not that they did not exist. The answer was a number.

You were never being told the many things are not real, and a list of seventeen genuine jobs has never once been a list of imaginary ones. The Spirit of God is the one who names one where many are standing, and the written word grants the trouble before it says anything else.

A flat list is a wall

So here is the practical claim, and it explains eighteen months.

A ranked list can be worked. You start at the top, you do that one, you move down. That is why lists exist and it is the only thing they are for.

A flat list cannot be worked at all. Every item is the first item, which means none of them is, and the mind cannot enter it anywhere. So a man opens the drawer, looks at it, and closes the drawer, which is exactly what has been happening.

You have been looking at a wall rather than at a list, and seventeen items of equal rank have never once had a way in. Luke 10:42 names one thing as needful, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a ranking possible where every reason is genuine.

And here is why the ranking has never been done, and it is honest rather than lazy.

Ranking means deciding that one real reason outweighs another real reason. The dog against the winter. The promise against the roof space. And there is no fact anywhere that settles those comparisons, so the ranking cannot be derived, and a man who deals in facts will not invent one.

You have been refusing to invent a fact you do not have, and an honest refusal has never once been the same as an inability to decide. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a decision possible without a fact underneath it, and Luke 10:42 names one as needful rather than proving it.

And one more, and it is the move. A ranking does not have to be true. It has to be marked.

You have a pen and the authority to use it, and a ranking written down has never once needed to be provable to be usable. Luke 10:42 says but one thing is needful, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that bench while a man underlines something without being able to justify it.

Mark one and underline it

Here is the assignment and it is one pen stroke.

Mark one item on the list as the one, and put a line under it.

Pick it however you like. Pick the one your eye went to. Pick the one that would annoy you least. Pick at random if that is what it takes, because a random ranking is usable and no ranking is not.

You have one line to draw tonight, and an item marked as the one has never once had to earn the marking to become the first item. Luke 10:42 names one against a background of many, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing there while a man makes a decision he cannot defend.

Do not rank the other sixteen. That is a different job and it is a large one and it is not tonight. One item, one line.

And then do nothing about it. Do not start it. That is a separate evening.

Here is what the line does. Tomorrow, when the drawer opens, there will be a first item. Not the right one, necessarily. A first one. And a list with a first item on it is a list, and a list can be entered, and eighteen months of a closed drawer end at the point where entry becomes possible.

Then shut the drawer.