There Is One Face I Am Dreading

It is not the whole thing. That is what nobody would understand if you tried to explain it.

The rest of it is fine. Most of the people, most of the afternoon, all of the food and the noise and the small ones running about with no shoes on. None of that has ever worried you for a second.

It is one face. Ten seconds. One person opening one thing.

And you have been living toward those ten seconds since about the middle of August, which means you have now watched them happen several hundred times in your head, and in most of the versions something crosses her face before she covers it.

She has not looked at anything yet. She does not know she is in this. And you have already sat through the moment more times than you can count.

There is a question in Zechariah that is aimed straight at what you have been doing.

Who hath despised the day of small things

Here it is, and it arrives in the middle of a building project that had run out of money and heart.

For who hath despised the day of small things? (Zechariah 4:10, King James Version)

It is a question, and questions in that book usually have an obvious answer that the listener is meant to supply.

Who despises a small beginning. Who looks at a foundation that is nothing much yet and writes off the whole thing.

People do. That is the answer. People do, and God does not, and the question is asked in that tone.

You have been standing on the wrong side of that question, and the Holy Spirit is the one who framed it as a question. Zechariah 4:10 puts the despising in the mouths of people rather than in the mouth of God, and a question is an invitation to notice where you have been standing.

Now the phrase itself, because it is a kind one.

The day of small things. Not the day of failure. Not the day of shame. A day, given a name, acknowledged as small, and treated by God as a real day with a real work going on in it.

You are inside a day that has a name and a dignity, and it is written as the day of small things rather than the day of coming up short. The Spirit of God is the one who named it, and He named it without a single note of contempt in the naming.

And here is what is actually happening in the passage around it.

That building was going up slowly and looked like nothing. The people working on it were embarrassed by the comparison with what had stood there before. And God's response is not to make it bigger. It is to ask who is doing the despising.

You have been asked to stop supplying a contempt nobody else has offered, and Scripture answers the smallness with a question rather than with an upgrade. The Holy Spirit is the one who leaves the day small and changes what a man does with it.

She has not been asked to play that part

Now let me say something about the face, because it deserves saying carefully.

Somebody has been cast in a role here. In the version in your head, she looks down, and something moves across her face, and then she is warm about it and the warmth is a kindness rather than a reaction.

That woman is a character. She has been written by you, over four months, out of your own dread.

And the real person, whoever she is, has not been consulted about any of it. She has not agreed to be disappointed. She has not been rehearsing anything at all.

You have been living with somebody you invented, and it is written that the despising of a small day comes from people rather than from heaven. The Spirit of God is the one who separates a real person from a rehearsed one, and He is doing that separating now.

And there is a specific cost to the rehearsal, which is worth naming.

Four months of watching that moment has already done to you almost everything the worst version of it could do. The dread has been paid in full, in advance, for an event that has not occurred.

You have already carried the whole weight of a thing that has not happened, and the Holy Spirit is the one who ends a rehearsal. Zechariah 4:10 asks who despises the small day rather than telling anybody to endure it, and He ends it by pointing out that nobody was ever on that stage.

And one more thing, and it is the plain one.

Whatever she does with her face is hers. Not a verdict, not a scoreboard, not a measurement of you. Some people are unreadable and some people are flat on a big day and some people are tired, and none of that is a report on what was handed over.

You are not waiting to be sentenced, and the written word settles the worth of a small day before anybody in the room reacts to it. The Spirit of God is the one who decided the value of the day, and He decided it in August while you were dreading it.

Stand in the ten seconds and look at her

So here is what to do, and it is the opposite of every instinct in the room.

Do not hand it over and turn away. Do not go and do something in the kitchen. Do not get busy at exactly that moment, which is what a man does when he cannot watch.

Give it to her, stay where you are, and look at her.

You are able to stand in ten seconds without escaping them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds a man still in a room. It is written that the day of small things is a day rather than a thing to get past, and standing still is the entire discipline here.

And say nothing about it. Not before, not during, not after.

No warning. No it is not much. No small laugh. If a sentence starts to come, let it die where it is and say her name instead.

You have a name to say and nothing else required of you, and Zechariah 4:10 answers the smallness with a question rather than with an explanation. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a speech out of a man's mouth at exactly the right second.

And then whatever happens, let it be over.

If she is delighted, good. If she is quiet, that is her. If something crosses her face, that is a human being having a reaction and not a court handing down a finding. Ten seconds later somebody will need something and the afternoon will move on, which is what afternoons do.

You are free the second the ten seconds end, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is standing in that room already. The written word puts the value of a small day beyond the reach of anybody's reaction to it, and He has not been dreading anything.