That Was Not Really Cleaning

You did do something yesterday.

And when I say that, something in you immediately produces a qualification. Yes, but it was only the surface. Yes, but it does not count because it took ten minutes. Yes, but that is not really cleaning, that is just moving things.

I want to look at that qualification, because it arrives so fast and so reliably that it has stopped being a thought and become a reflex.

Here is what it does. It takes everything you actually do and moves it into a category called not really, and the category called really is empty, and it has been empty for years, and no work you do can get into it because the rule for entry keeps moving.

Ten minutes does not count because it is short. An hour does not count because you did not finish. Finishing the drawer does not count because it is only a drawer. Doing the whole room does not count because it took you all day and other people would have done it faster.

There is no thing you could do that would qualify. That is not a high standard. A high standard has a top. This has no top, which makes it something else entirely.

Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily

There is a line in Colossians written to people whose work nobody thought much of.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:23 and 24, King James Version)

Whatsoever ye do.

Now hold on to how wide that is. Whatsoever. It is not: whatsoever significant thing. It is not: the tasks above a certain size. It covers everything, and it was written into a situation where most of the work being done by the people reading it was small, repetitive and invisible.

And what it does with that work is astonishing. It moves the whole of it into service rendered directly to Christ. Not the important parts. The whole of it.

So there is no category in that sentence for not really. Every bit of it is in, and the deciding of what counts has been taken out of human hands entirely, including yours.

You are not the one who decides which of your work counts, and Colossians 3:23 has never once left that judgment with the worker. It is written as whatsoever ye do, which admits everything without a size threshold, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an assessment out of the hands of somebody who has been failing themselves with it for years.

You have been operating a rule that Scripture does not contain. The word puts every small repetitive act into service to Christ, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in ten minutes of moving things about.

A standard with no top is not a standard

Now let me name the mechanism plainly, because I think seeing it helps.

A real standard can be met. That is what makes it a standard. A carpenter's tolerance is a real standard; the joint is within it or it is not, and when it is, the work is accepted.

The rule running in your head cannot be met, and you can prove that from your own history. Look back at the times you did something substantial. It got reclassified within a day. The rule moved.

You have been measured by a thing that moves whenever you approach it, and no standard anywhere has ever once been a standard without a top. Colossians 3:23 admits whatsoever ye do with no threshold in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes an assessment out of the hands of somebody failing themselves with it.

Something that moves whenever you approach it is not measuring your work. It is doing something else, and what it is doing is protecting you from a particular kind of disappointment, because a person who never counts anything can never be let down by a total.

That is not vanity and it is not perfectionism in the way people use that word. It is a defense, and it is expensive, and it has been running so long you cannot hear it any more.

You were never holding yourself to a high standard, and there has never once been a version of that rule that could be satisfied. Colossians 3:23 admits whatsoever without a threshold, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a person that the thing judging them was never a measure.

So tonight we let one thing count.

You are permitted to give yourself credit for something small, and giving it has never once been the same as lowering what you expect. It is written that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward, which puts the accounting somewhere other than in your own head, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a small finished thing be counted without argument.

Go and look at it and let it count

So here is the whole of what I am asking, and the second half is the hard half.

Go and stand in front of the thing you did. The ten minutes. The surface. The moving of things from one place to another.

Say out loud: that counts.

And then, when the qualification arrives, and it will arrive, say it again. That counts.

Then go and sit down and clean nothing.

You are able to let one thing count tonight, and letting it has never once required it to be big. Colossians 3:23 covers whatsoever ye do, and the Spirit of God is present in a small act that a person has finally allowed onto the page.