He Has the App and He Has Never Finished a Single Book

There are four plans in there and every one of them stopped on a different day.

One stopped on day four. One got to day nine. One made it eleven days, which is his record and which he is quietly aware is his record. The fourth he started twice and abandoned in the same week both times, which he says is the funniest of the four.

The notification still comes at seven and he swipes it now without reading it, which is a thing his thumb does before his brain is involved.

And here is what has built up underneath all that, and it is not about reading. Four unfinished plans is now four pieces of evidence. Not evidence about scheduling. Evidence about him.

He would not put it that strongly out loud. But if you asked him whether he is the sort of person who follows through on something like this, he would give you an answer with a laugh in it, and the laugh would be doing the work.

The light is at the door

There is a promise in the long psalm about God's word, and where it puts the light changes what a plan is for.

The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. (Psalm 119:130, King James Version)

The entrance.

Not the completion. Not the finished plan. The point at which the words get in.

Which reorganizes the whole thing. If the light is at the door, then eleven days is eleven days of light rather than a failed thirty. Day four was not a failure that got recorded, it was four days of the thing the verse describes.

You have already had the thing the promise is attached to. Psalm 119 puts the light at the entrance rather than at the end, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a preposition do something to four abandoned plans.

What an eyewitness praised was the daily part

There is a line in Acts about a group of people that Luke, who was traveling with Paul, singles out.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:11)

Searched the scriptures daily.

Daily is the word he chose. Not thoroughly, not completely, not in a structured program.

He is describing a rhythm rather than an achievement, and the rhythm is what gets the compliment.

You are being asked for a rhythm and not a completion. Acts 17 records daily rather than finished, and it is His Spirit who makes an old commendation land on somebody with four dead plans in a phone.

The prayer asks for one day at a time

There is a line in the prayer Jesus taught that is worth reading as a design decision.

Give us this day our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

This day. Daily.

He could have taught them to ask for a month's worth. He did not, and the people He taught it to knew the story about food in the wilderness that spoiled if it was kept overnight.

The arrangement is deliberately one day. Not because God is stingy about it, but because a man who has a month in the cupboard does not come back tomorrow.

You are inside an arrangement that was built one day at a time on purpose. Matthew 6 puts daily into the prayer itself, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old design decision take the weight off a thirty day chart.

The instruction is about ordinary hours

There is a passage about how the words are meant to be handled, and what is striking is how unstructured it is.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

Sitting. Walking. Lying down. Getting up.

That is not a slot in a schedule. That is a description of the shape of an ordinary day, and the words are meant to be in it at those points rather than in a block a man defends.

A plan is a block. Blocks are the first thing that goes in a bad week, and then the plan is broken and the whole thing is over.

You are given a day rather than a slot to protect. Deuteronomy 6 lists four ordinary moments rather than an appointment, and it is His Spirit who makes an old instruction survive a bad week.

And Joshua got told what to do with it, not how much

There is one more, and it is the one people quote at each other about discipline, and it says something different from what it is usually used for.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. (Joshua 1:8)

Shall not depart out of thy mouth.

Out of the mouth. It is a talking instruction. Meditate in that language is a word about muttering, saying a thing over, turning it in the mouth.

It is not a reading target. It is a description of a man carrying a sentence around with him and repeating it.

Which is available on a day when nobody opens anything.

You are able to carry one sentence on a day nothing gets opened. Joshua 1 puts it in the mouth rather than on a page count, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old word about muttering feel usable on a bad Tuesday.