Some Of These Are Not Mine Anymore

Look at the fourth one down.

You took that on in a different year. There was a person in the house who is not in the house now, or there was a job that has ended, or there was a plan for a room that was going to be used for something that never happened.

It is still on the list. It has been carried forward every time the list has been rewritten, and nobody has ever asked whether it belongs to the life currently being lived.

And there are three of them like that. Maybe four.

Here is what those items are doing. They are not waiting to be done. They are not going to be done, because the reason they existed stopped existing some time ago. What they are doing is sitting on a list and drawing weight, every day, for a purpose that has expired.

And nobody has ever crossed one off without doing it, because crossing off without doing feels like quitting, and quitting has a bad name.

You are a woman carrying plans from a life that has moved, and a project taken on for a different season has never once been a debt you still owe.

Behold, I will do a new thing

There is a line in Isaiah about newness, and the question that follows it is the part that lands here.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19, King James Version)

Shall ye not know it.

That is a question, and it is asked because the answer is not obvious. A new thing can spring forth and go unrecognized, and apparently that happens often enough to need asking about.

Which is worth sitting with. It is possible for a life to have changed and for the person living it not to have fully registered the change.

You have a question in that verse that allows for a new thing going unnoticed, and a life that moved has never once been obliged to announce itself. Isaiah 43:19 asks whether it will be known rather than assuming it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes the noticing possible late.

And look at what comes just before it in the chapter. Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. The new thing arrives in a sentence that begins by setting down the old ones.

Those two belong together. A new thing springing forth and an old thing being set down are described in the same breath, which means the setting down is not a failure attached to the newness. It is part of it.

You were never being asked to carry both, and setting down an old plan has never once been a separate act from receiving a new thing. The Spirit of God is the one who does the new thing, and the written word puts the forgetting and the springing forth in the same passage rather than in two.

An expired item is not an unfinished one

So here is the practical claim, and it is a distinction that nobody makes.

There are two kinds of item on that list, and they look identical written down.

One is a job that still belongs to this life and has not been done yet. That is unfinished work, and this whole site is about it.

The other is a job that belonged to a life that has ended. That is not unfinished work. It is an expired decision, and the difference matters enormously, because unfinished work can be done and an expired decision cannot be, no matter how many years it is carried.

You have items on that list that were never once going to be done, and an expired decision has never once been the same thing as an unfinished job. Isaiah 43:19 announces a new thing and sets down the former ones in the same passage, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can tell an expired plan from a live one.

And here is why the distinction has never been made, and it is not carelessness.

Crossing something off without doing it feels exactly like quitting. The two are indistinguishable from the inside, because both of them end with an item gone and nothing built.

But they are not the same. Quitting is abandoning something that still belongs to you. Releasing is putting down something that stopped belonging to you a while ago, and the second one is not a failure in any sense.

You are able to release a thing without quitting anything, and an item that has expired has never once been an item anybody abandoned. The Spirit of God is the one who separates those two, and Isaiah 43:19 speaks of a new thing springing forth where an old one used to be.

And one more, because this row is where the site tells the truth. Some projects should be released, and saying so is what keeps the rest of this honest.

You have permission that this site is willing to say out loud, and releasing a project has never once been the thing anybody should be ashamed of. Isaiah 43:19 sets down the former things by name, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a woman puts down something she has been carrying for years.

Cross three off, and replace them with nothing

Here is the assignment and the second half is the part people cannot do.

Cross three items off the list by deciding not to do them.

Three. Not one, because one can be explained away as an exception. Three makes it a decision rather than a lapse.

You have three items available tonight that belong to a life that has moved, and crossing something off without doing it has never once been the same as quitting. Isaiah 43:19 sets down the former things and announces a new one, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that table while a line goes through something.

Pick them by the test in this article. Which ones were taken on for a version of your life that is not the one currently running. Not the hardest ones. Not the least appealing. The expired ones.

You have a page that can show a decision instead of an absence, and a crossed out line has never once looked the same as a thing that quietly went missing. So draw the line with an actual pen rather than erasing anything. Isaiah 43:19 sets the former things down by name, and the Spirit of God is the one at that table while it happens.

And then here is the half that matters. Replace them with nothing.

Do not add three new items to keep the list the same length. Do not write a note about why. Do not put them on a different list for later. The list is now three items shorter and that is the entire point of the evening.

Then put the pen down.