I Need To Clean Up Before I Can Start

The evening goes on the getting ready.

You come home meaning to do the thing. And there is stuff on the floor in there, and the surface needs clearing, and you cannot really work in that, so you start with that, reasonably, and forty minutes later the room is better and the evening is over.

And it happened again the week before. And the week before that.

Here is the part that makes this so hard to catch. Every single one of those evenings was productive. Things got moved. Surfaces got cleared. Nobody wasted anything. If somebody asked what you did on Tuesday you could answer honestly and it would sound like work.

It was work. It was just never the work.

And there is something else in it, which is quieter and needs saying gently. Clearing up is safe. Nothing can go wrong with tidying. The actual job might not go well, and the preliminary stage postpones that without anybody having to admit to postponing anything.

You are able to begin in a room that is not ready, and preparation without an afterwards has never once been the same as preparation.

Afterwards build thine house

There is a proverb about the order of work that is on the side of preparation, which makes its ending all the more striking.

Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house. (Proverbs 24:27, King James Version)

And afterwards build thine house.

Notice first that the preparation is commended. Prepare thy work. Make it fit. Nobody in this proverb is being told that getting ready is a waste of time, and nobody in this article is going to tell you that either.

But the sentence has an afterwards in it, and the afterwards is not optional and it is not far away. It is the destination the whole first half is pointed at.

You have a proverb that commends the preparing and then names what it is for, and getting ready has never once been condemned anywhere in it. Proverbs 24:27 puts the afterwards in the same sentence as the preparing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps the two of them attached.

And here is the thing that makes the verse land. Preparation with no afterwards in it is not preparation. It is something else that looks exactly like it from the outside.

The word prepare only means anything if there is a thing being prepared for. Take the afterwards away and the same activity becomes a way of spending an evening.

You were never doing the wrong activity, and preparing has never once been the fault in any of those evenings. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the afterwards back into a sentence a woman has been living half of, and Proverbs 24:27 holds both halves together in one line.

Working around things is allowed

So here is the practical claim, and it will sound too simple.

You can work in a room that is not ready.

The floor can have things on it. The surface can be covered. You can push something aside with your foot, put the brush down on a box instead of a cleared shelf, and do twenty minutes in a room that would embarrass you if somebody walked in.

You have permission to work in an untidy room tonight, and a cleared floor has never once been a requirement for anybody to begin. Proverbs 24:27 sends somebody to build the house rather than to perfect the site, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room that has not been made ready.

And here is the part nobody says. The tidying is not really about being able to work.

It is about the room being in a fit state to be worked in, which is a different thing, and it is about not sitting down to a job in the middle of something that reflects badly on the house.

You have a real feeling in that doorway and not a vanity, and the same feeling has never once stopped being the thing that cost this project a year. Both of those are true at once, and neither one cancels the other. Proverbs 24:27 names the afterwards without one word about the state of the ground, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a woman hold two true things at the same time.

You are managing a feeling and not a workspace, and an untidy floor has never once stopped a single person from picking up a brush. The Spirit of God is the one who separates the two, and the written word tells somebody to build the house and does not describe the state of the ground first.

And one more, because this row must not become a scolding about priorities. Nothing in this is a failure of judgment.

You were never confused about what the job was, and a safe activity standing in front of a risky one has never once been a sign that anybody was fooling themselves. Proverbs 24:27 commends preparing and then names the afterwards, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes the afterwards possible tonight rather than after another forty minutes of moving boxes.

Start it tonight, untidy

Here is the assignment and it will feel wrong.

Start the work tonight without tidying anything first.

Walk in, pick up whatever the job needs, and start. Do not clear the floor. Do not move the boxes. Do not wipe anything down.

You have twenty minutes and a room that is not ready, and starting in the mess has never once made the work itself any worse. Proverbs 24:27 puts the afterwards in the same breath as the preparing, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room while a woman works around a pile of things on the floor.

Work around whatever is in the way. Put the tools on a box. Kneel in the awkward spot. Move one single item if it is physically blocking your hands, and nothing else.

It will feel unsatisfying and slightly disreputable, and the whole time there will be an awareness of everything not being done.

That is the cost of the evening, and the cost is twenty minutes of discomfort instead of a year.

Then stop and leave it exactly as it is. Do not tidy up afterward either. Tidying afterward is an ending, and this is not supposed to end tonight.