The bird table has been wrecked four times and I built it four times and I am going to tell you about the four, because the four is the interesting part and nobody talks about it.
The first time it took me two days to stop being upset. Two days. I remember them because they were bad days and I was unpleasant in them, and my dad did not tell me off for being unpleasant which I have thought about since.
The second time it took about half a day.
The third time it took the length of the afternoon, and I know that because I was cross at lunch and I was not cross at supper and I did not do anything in between except be outside.
The fourth time it took eleven minutes. I know it was eleven minutes because I looked at the clock when I found it and I looked at the clock in the barn afterward, and it was eleven minutes and then I got the wood out.
And here is the thing that worried me, and it worried me quite a lot for about a week. I thought there might be something wrong with me. Two days is what it costs. Eleven minutes felt like I had stopped caring about the bird table, and I have not stopped caring about the bird table.
I asked my dad about it. I said I thought I was not minding properly.
He was doing something to a hinge and he did not stop doing it, which is how you know he is going to say a real thing. He said that a man who has carried a heavy thing four hundred times does not get a lighter thing, and he does not stop noticing that it is heavy, he just knows where to put his hands.
Bucky has no idea any of this happened. He does not know there is a bird table, or that there have been four, or that a boy stood in a barn looking at a clock. That is his lane and it has never once varied.
The fifth one is up now. It is bolted, which is possibly cheating.
Seven times in a day is a number about repetition
Jesus gives an instruction with an arithmetic in it that people usually hear as an exaggeration.
And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. (Luke 17:4)
Seven times in a day. Not seven times in a life. The compression is the point, and it puts the whole thing on a scale where a person cannot possibly be having a fresh emotional experience each time.
Which means He is describing a practice rather than a series of decisions. Nobody makes seven separate profound choices before supper.
You are being described as somebody who does this repeatedly rather than heroically, and Luke 17:4 puts seven of them inside one day. It is the Holy Spirit who makes that read as being made possible rather than as being asked for more.
And the response of the men listening is the funniest and most honest line in the passage: And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. They hear the instruction and immediately conclude they do not have the equipment.
You have not been the first person to think this is beyond you. Luke 17:5 records twelve men saying so out loud, and His Spirit is what makes their honesty a comfort rather than a warning.
What He says back about the equipment
The answer He gives them is about size, and it is not the answer they were asking for.
And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. (Luke 17:6)
They asked for more. He talks about the smallest seed they knew, which is not more, and He is not being unkind. He is telling them that the problem was never the quantity.
And then He tells a short parable about a servant coming in from the field and doing the next job without expecting to be thanked, which is a strange thing to attach to a conversation about forgiving until you notice it is about ordinariness.
You are not going to be given something extra, and Luke 17:6 answers a request for more by talking about the smallest thing on the farm. The Spirit of God is what makes a small amount stop feeling like a shortfall.
You have been handed something that works by being done again rather than by being felt harder. Luke 17:10 finishes the passage on a servant doing the next job as a matter of course, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves that from a parable into a boy with a clock and a stack of wood.
So here is what my dad said with a hinge in his hands, and what I have made of it.
You are not going cold, and Luke 17:4 describes seven of these inside a single day on purpose. The Holy Spirit is what keeps that from being an impossible number and makes it a description of somebody who has learned where to put their hands.
Eleven minutes worried me. I want to say that clearly for anybody who gets to their own eleven minutes and thinks they have gone hard. It felt like the bird table had stopped mattering, and it had not, and I know it had not because I got the wood out.
You have been getting better at something rather than caring less about it. Luke 17:10 ends the whole passage on somebody doing the next job as a matter of course, and His Spirit is what makes ordinary look like faithfulness instead of like indifference.
And this is for whoever is reading it out, who has done this a great many times about one particular person and has wondered what it means that it got quicker. You were never being asked for a fresh feeling every time. Luke 17:5 has twelve men asking for more equipment and Luke 17:6 tells them the amount was never the issue, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes that an enormous relief.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over your own suspicion about yourself is genuinely yours, delegated and never invented. God describes seven of these in one day, so speak to the idea that it should still be costing what it cost the first time: you have standing to address it because He is the one who set the scale. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own policy, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Luke 17:4 and Luke 17:6 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not your volume, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Idea that this should still take two days, you are not measuring anything real. The Word of God says seven times in a day, which is a number nobody could reach by having a fresh feeling each time.
- Suspicion that I have gone cold, you are finished in the name of Jesus. I am practiced and I am warm, because Luke 17:6 answers a request for more faith by pointing at the smallest seed on the farm.
- Father, You have never once asked me to feel it fresh every single time. I receive that today, and I thank You that Your word ends that whole passage on somebody doing the next job as a matter of course.
Luke 17:4
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