I Hit Something I Did Not Expect

There was something behind it.

Not a catastrophe. Nobody is being told to call anybody about gas or wiring here, and if that is what you found then this is not the article and a professional is.

Something ordinary and unexpected. The surface behind was not what you thought. There was a fixing that should not have been there. The measurement did not work because of something nobody could have known about until it was opened up.

And the job stopped that evening, and it has been stopped since, and the surprise is still sitting exactly where it was found.

Here is what is worth naming before anything else, because it is doing more damage than the surprise is.

The job did not stop because the problem is hard. It stopped because a decision is required, and the decision has three possible answers, and none of them is obviously right, and there is no way to find out which is right without doing one of them.

So a man stands in front of an open wall holding an unmade decision, and an unmade decision is heavier than any of the three things it could turn into.

You are a man who found something nobody could have seen, and a surprise behind a wall has never once been a failure to have planned properly.

How can a man understand his own way

There is a proverb about foresight that says something surprisingly freeing about how little of it anybody has.

Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:24, King James Version)

How can a man then understand his own way.

It is a question and it expects the answer no. Not as a rebuke, and not as a complaint about human limitation. As a plain statement of the arrangement.

A man does not have the information. That is not a deficiency in a particular man, it is the standing condition of being one.

You have a limit that scripture states as ordinary, and not seeing what was behind that wall has never once been a shortfall in the man who opened it. Proverbs 20:24 puts the question so that the answer is nobody, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a relief rather than a resignation.

And look at the first half, which is the part that carries the weight. Man's goings are of the LORD.

The goings are the steps. The actual movement. The proverb puts them on God's side of the ledger before it ever asks the question about understanding.

Which means being unable to foresee the next thing is not the same as being unattended in it, and those two get confused constantly by men standing in front of open walls.

You were never walking unattended into a thing you could not see, and an unforeseeable surprise has never once meant anybody was on their own with it. The Spirit of God is the one to whom those goings belong, and Proverbs 20:24 states that before it asks the question about understanding.

The decision is the weight, not the problem

So here is the practical claim, and it is where the article actually helps.

You have a problem back there with a size to it, and a certain number of hours and a certain amount of material has never once been the thing that stopped this job. It will be awkward, and that is all true, and it is bearable. Proverbs 20:24 puts a man's goings on God's side of it before it says anything else, and the Spirit of God is the one present through the awkward hours.

The unmade decision has no size at all. It contains all three options at once, all of them live, all of them costing something, and it has been running in a man head for four months without resolving.

You are carrying three futures at once and not one problem, and an undecided thing has never once weighed what a decided one weighs. Proverbs 20:24 says plainly that nobody can understand their own way, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a decision possible without certainty being available first.

And here is why the decision has not been made, and it is not indecisiveness.

There is no way to know which of the three is right. Every one of them has a case. And somewhere in there is the idea that a man ought to be able to work out the correct answer before committing, and that idea is exactly what the proverb takes away.

If nobody can understand their own way, then waiting for certainty is waiting for a thing that was never on offer.

You have been waiting for something the written word says nobody gets, and certainty has never once been available to anybody making a decision like this. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a choice made without it, and Proverbs 20:24 asks the question in a way that closes the possibility rather than opening it.

And one more thing, because this row must stay practical. A decision said out loud is different from a decision thought.

You have a way to close a four month question in about a minute, and saying which one out loud has never once required you to be sure of it. Proverbs 20:24 puts the goings on God's side, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing there when a man says a decision into an empty garage.

Write three, pick one, say it out loud

Here is the assignment and it is three steps and they take about ten minutes.

Write down the three options.

On paper, in plain words, each one a single line. Do it properly, because the three have been circling for months and have never once been pinned down in a form where they could be looked at side by side.

You have three options that have never once been written down, and a thing on paper has never once been able to keep circling the way it does in a head. Proverbs 20:24 says no man understands his own way, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that bench while three lines get written.

Then pick one. Tonight.

Not the right one, because there is no way to identify the right one and that is the whole point. Pick the one you would pick if somebody made you choose in the next ten seconds, because that one is usually the answer and the four months have added nothing to it.

Then say out loud which one you picked. Out loud, in the garage, to nobody. I am doing the second one.

That is the close. A decision said out loud stops being three things and becomes one thing, and one thing has a size, and a thing with a size can be worked on.