I Only Ever Use The Little One

Your hand goes past it.

Every time. The drawer opens, and there is the big one lying there, and your hand travels over it to the small one at the front, and the whole thing takes about a second and has happened several thousand times.

The little one is not the right tool. You know that. It takes twice as long, it is worse at everything, and there are jobs it genuinely cannot do, so those jobs simply do not get done in that house.

But it fits in your hand. You can feel where all of it is at once. Nothing about it feels like a thing that could get away from you.

And the big one lies there in the drawer being perfectly ordinary, used by everybody else on earth, and there is something in you that will not close a hand around it.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

This is a real fear and nothing here is going to treat it as an eccentricity.

A blade with length in it is a serious object, and a body that does not want to hold one is doing something sensible with the information available. Nothing here is going to be amused by it, and nobody is going to explain that it is perfectly safe, because that is exactly the kind of thing people say who have never felt it.

Thy gentleness hath made me great

There is a line at the end of a psalm about strength, and the clause that closes it goes the other way entirely.

Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. (Psalm 18:35, King James Version)

Thy gentleness hath made me great.

The psalm has been full of force up to that point. Shields, right hands, deliverance, enemies. And then the summary arrives and the thing credited with the making great is gentleness, which is not the word anybody would have predicted.

And gentleness there is not weakness. It is power that has been made small enough to be received, which is a different thing entirely and a much harder thing to do.

You are being met by something that made itself small enough to hold, and a preference for what fits in your hand has never once been the same thing as an inability. Psalm 18:35 credits the gentleness rather than the shield with the making great, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man whose hand goes past the big one.

And notice the right hand holding up is in the same verse.

Held up and dealt with gently, both at once, by the same one. Nobody has to choose between being supported and being handled carefully, and the verse puts them side by side without any tension between them.

You have both the holding and the gentleness rather than one or the other, and being handled carefully has never once been the same thing as being thought weak. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been reaching past something for years, and Psalm 18:35 sets the right hand and the gentleness in one sentence.

The small one is not the problem, and it is not the solution either

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. The little knife is not a coward's tool. It cuts. It has fed you for years and there is nothing wrong with it.

The trouble is narrower than that. The trouble is that the reaching past has become automatic, and automatic means never decided, and a thing never decided cannot be changed because nobody notices it happening.

That one second at the drawer is where this lives. Not in the cooking, not in the fear, in one second of hand travel that has run unexamined several thousand times.

You were never choosing the small one, and an automatic movement has never once been the same thing as a decision somebody made. Psalm 18:35 credits a gentleness that had to be deliberate rather than automatic, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man at a drawer with his hand already moving.

And here is the second half, which is the thing nobody tells you about big knives. A larger blade with weight in it is easier to control than a small one, not harder, because weight does the work and a light knife has to be pushed. Pushing is where a hand slips.

That is not an argument for feeling differently. It is a fact about the object, and it means the thing your hand has been avoiding is in one real sense the safer of the two, and nobody has ever mentioned that to you.

You have been reaching past the steadier of the two, and a heavier blade has never once required more nerve than a light one that has to be pushed. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with a drawer standing open, and Psalm 18:35 puts the greatness on the side of what was made gentle rather than on the side of force.

What tonight is, with the big one

So here is the assignment, and it is deliberately small. Pick up the big knife tonight, cut one thing slowly, and put it away.

Tonight. One thing. One cut is enough. Open the drawer and stop for a moment before your hand moves, which is the actual exercise, because the second is where everything happens. Then take the big one. Put the board flat, keep the other hand well back, and let the weight of the blade do the work rather than pushing it.

It may be uncomfortable. That is expected, and discomfort is not danger, and every bit of it is allowed to be there while your hands do the thing anyway.

You are stopping the second rather than fighting the fear, and one paused movement at a drawer has never once been a small thing. Psalm 18:35 makes the gentleness the thing that did the work, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that drawer with a man whose hand has stopped over the right one.

Then the second half, which is the one that does the work. Put it away yourself. Wash it, dry it, and lay it back in the drawer, big one and little one side by side, and leave the drawer open for a second before you close it. Both of them belong in there. Nothing has to be thrown out and the little one is not in disgrace, and the point of tonight was never to stop using it.

You are adding one rather than replacing one, and a drawer with both knives in it has never once been a drawer that had to choose. The Spirit of God is the one at that drawer with two knives lying side by side, and Psalm 18:35 holds the right hand and the gentleness together in one line.