Mr. Ames asked me on a Sunday whether I had done the west run and I said yes.
I had not done the west run. I had looked at the west run, which took about four minutes and which I did on the Thursday, and I had formed a clear plan for the west run involving two posts and about forty feet of wire, and in my head that plan was so complete that when a man asked me a question on a Sunday the answer came out as yes.
I am not making an excuse. I am describing what actually happened in my mouth, because it happened fast and it happened without a decision, and any man who has ever said a job was done when it was planned knows exactly the moment I am talking about.
Then it was Sunday afternoon and the job was still not done and the answer was already given, which turns one job into two.
Bucky went through the west run on the Wednesday, into Ames's ground, and Ames brought him back on a rope.
He did not say anything about the fence. That is the part I want on the record, because Ames is a good neighbor and a decent man and he stood in my yard with my goat on a rope and talked about the weather for four minutes and then went home.
Toby watched him go and then said, out loud, that Mr. Ames knew.
I said yes. And then he asked, in the way a nine year old asks a thing that adults have learned not to ask, why I had not just said on Sunday that I had not got to it yet.
I have been farming for thirty two years and I did not have an answer for him that was worth saying out loud in front of a child, so I said nothing, and then on the Thursday morning I walked over and told Ames, and he said, and I am quoting him exactly, that he had wondered whether I was going to.
I did the west run that afternoon. It took two hours. Two hours, against eleven days of being a man who had said a thing.
The sentence is a description rather than a threat
The verse gets quoted at people, usually with a raised eyebrow, and the setting it comes from is a negotiation about work.
But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23)
Two tribes have asked to settle on one side of the river and Moses says they can, on condition that they cross over and fight alongside everybody else first. They agree. And this sentence is about the agreement.
So the sin in question is a job not done that was said to be in hand. That is the literal subject matter of the verse, and it is much more specific than the way it usually gets used.
You are not being threatened by that sentence, and Numbers 32:23 is describing how undone work behaves rather than how God behaves. It is the Holy Spirit who makes that distinction the difference between dread and clarity.
Find you out. The subject of the verb is the sin. It comes and finds the person. Nobody has to be caught by anybody, because an undone job is a physical fact in the world and physical facts eventually walk into a yard on a rope.
You have not been hunted by anybody in this, and the sentence puts the finding on the thing rather than on a searcher. The written word makes it a fact about work rather than about surveillance, and His Spirit is what makes that read as sober instead of as frightening.
The clean thing to do with a job that is not done
There is a verse in James about the same thing from the other end, and it is one of the shortest instructions in the New Testament.
But let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. (James 5:12)
Yes means yes. No means no. And notice what James assumes: that a person is allowed to say no, and that saying no is not a failure. Half of the trouble in a life like mine comes from having quietly decided that no is not one of the available answers.
You are permitted the plain answer, and James 5:12 lists it as one of exactly two. The Spirit of God is what makes not yet sound like an answer rather than an admission.
And the reason James gives is not about honesty as a virtue. It is lest ye fall into condemnation, which is a practical warning about what the elaborate answer does to the person giving it.
You have been offered a way of speaking that does not cost anything to maintain. James 5:12 keeps the whole instruction to two words, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes two words feel like enough in a conversation a person wants to survive.
So here is what two hours of fencing against eleven days is worth saying out loud.
You are not going to keep a job finished by describing it as finished, and Numbers 32:23 says the undone thing comes and finds the person. The Holy Spirit is what keeps that from being a warning on a wall and makes it the reason a man walks across a field on a Thursday morning.
The boy asked the right question and I could not answer it. Why not just say on Sunday that I had not got to it yet. There is no reason. There is not one. There was a man, and there was a question, and there was a plan in his head that felt like a finished fence, and the word yes came out.
You have somebody who is not hunting you down, and Scripture puts the finding on the job rather than on a searcher. Numbers 32:23 makes the sin the subject of that verb, and His Spirit is what turns a much quoted sentence back into an honest description.
And this is for the one reading it out at the end of the day, who has something currently reported as done. You were always allowed to say not yet. James 5:12 gives exactly two answers and both of them are one word, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes the shorter one possible tomorrow morning.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over a job you have described wrongly is genuinely yours, delegated and never invented. God makes the undone thing the subject of the finding rather than making Himself a hunter, so speak to it: you have standing to address it because He is the one who described it that way. 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 Numbers 32:23 and James 5:12 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not your volume, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Job I reported as finished, you are not going to stay finished by being described. The Word of God says be sure your sin will find you out, and it makes the thing itself the one doing the finding.
- Habit of answering longer than the question, you are finished in the name of Jesus. I am free to say not yet, because James 5:12 lists exactly two answers and both of them are one word long.
- Father, You have never once been hunting me over an undone piece of work. I receive that today, and I thank You that Your word describes what work does rather than describing what You are like when it is not done.
Numbers 32:23
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