I Cannot Make The First Cut

You have measured it eleven times, and the measurement has not changed.

You have the piece. You have the saw. You know exactly where the line goes and you have drawn it and rubbed it out twice, and the line is in the same place both times.

And you cannot cut it.

Because up to this point everything has been reversible. The measuring can be redone. The plan can change. The wood can go back in the garage. The second the blade goes in, all of that ends, and there is a piece of wood that is either the right length or a piece of firewood.

That is the whole obstacle, and it is one step long. Everything before it you can do. Everything after it you can do. It is that step.

Before we go on, let me put this down. Not knowing whether a cut is right is not a character flaw, and hesitating in front of something irreversible is not weakness. That hesitation is what a functioning mind does when it meets a one way door, and I am not going to call it anything else.

The feet were dipped in the brim

There is a detail in Joshua about the crossing of the Jordan that people rush past, and it is entirely about the irreversible step.

And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap. (Joshua 3:15, King James Version)

Read the order of it. The feet went in first, and then the water moved. Not the other way round.

Those men walked to the edge of a river in flood carrying the ark of God, and there was nothing at all to indicate that anything was going to happen. The instruction was to step in. The evidence arrived after the foot did.

You have been asked for a foot before the evidence, and needing to see it work first has never once been a requirement God put on anybody. Joshua 3:15 puts the dipping before the parting in the plain order of the sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that read as company rather than as pressure.

And notice the word brim. Not the middle of the river. The edge. The first inch of water. That is a very small commitment for such a large thing to follow.

You are standing at a brim rather than in the middle of anything, and the first inch has never once been the same as the whole crossing. The Spirit of God is the one who goes into a one way moment with a person, and it is written in Joshua that the water waited for the foot and not the foot for the water.

The step is one step, and it is small

Here is what is worth seeing about the actual size of this.

The job has about fourteen steps in it. You can do thirteen of them. It has been treated as a blocked job, when in fact one step out of fourteen is blocked and the other thirteen are sitting there completely available.

That is worth saying out loud, because a mind that says I cannot do this feels very different from a mind that says I am stuck on step six.

You have one blocked step and thirteen open ones, and being stuck at a single point has never once meant that the whole job was beyond you. It is written in Joshua 3:15 that the foot went into the brim before anything changed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can shrink a whole job back down to the one step it actually is.

And here is the practical fact about that step, which nobody tells beginners. Almost every irreversible cut can be made twice. Cut long. If the piece is a quarter inch too long, that is a thing you fix in ninety seconds. If it is a quarter inch too short, it is firewood.

So the whole terror of that moment is asymmetric, and the asymmetry has a solution, and the solution is one sentence: always cut on the long side of the line.

Now the limit, and I say it here rather than in a footer. There is a category where the irreversible step should never be yours at all. Never a gas appliance, never the breaker panel, never mains wiring, never a wall holding the building up, never a roof. Call a licensed professional and pay them properly. On those, the hesitation is not a snare, it is information, and it is correct.

You are entirely right to refuse an irreversible step that belongs to somebody licensed, and knowing which hesitation to obey has never once been a smaller kind of skill than pushing past one. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a man clarity between the two, and Scripture puts the stepping in at the brim of a river and not at the deep part of it.

Cut the practice piece first

So here is the ask, and it takes the one way door and makes it two way for ten minutes.

Make the first cut tonight on a piece that does not matter, and then make it on the real one.

Go and find an offcut. Any piece of scrap in the garage. Draw a line on it and cut it. Feel where the blade wanders. Feel how much of the line disappears. Find out, on wood nobody will ever see, exactly what your hands do at that moment.

You are able to rehearse an irreversible moment on something worthless, and one practice cut has never once made the real one less brave. The Spirit of God is the one who is with a man in a rehearsal exactly as much as in the performance, and Joshua 3:15 has the crossing begin at the brim rather than in the middle.

Then go straight to the real piece and do it. Not tomorrow. Straight after, while your hands still have it.

And cut on the long side of the line. Say that out loud before the blade goes in, because it is the one sentence that turns the worst case from firewood into ninety seconds.

You have permission to arrive at the real cut with your hands already warm, and a rehearsal on scrap has never once been cheating. It is written in Joshua that the water rose up only after the feet had gone in, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in that garage with you.