I Cannot Look At Mine

You can stand in front of another man's work for ten minutes and enjoy it, and you cannot look at your own for two seconds.

You did it on Saturday. You were at somebody's house and there was a piece of furniture in the hall and you looked at the joints properly, and you said something to the owner about it, and you meant every word.

And there is a thing in your own workshop that you finished on Thursday that you have not looked at once since you put the tools down.

Not out of modesty. You physically do not do it. Your eyes go past it. You have carried things out to the van without looking at them, and you have delivered work you could not describe an hour later, and this has been going on for about fifteen years.

I am not going to tell you to admire yourself, and I am not going to turn this into a lesson about pride, which would take the one good thing straight back. I am going to show you what God did at the end of the sixth day.

He rested from all his work

There is a sentence at the start of Genesis 2 about what happened when the making stopped, and the verb in it is not what anybody expects.

Everything is finished. And then there is a line about what God did next, and it is not the next project.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (Genesis 2:2, King James Version)

You are allowed to stop in front of finished work, and stopping has never once been idleness. Genesis 2:2 has the making end and a rest follow it rather than the next thing beginning, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a workshop doorway with a chair carried out and a mug on the floor.

Notice how much space that gets. The making takes six days and the stopping takes a whole day, and Scripture spends a verse on it and then another one after that.

And notice what it is described as. Rested from all his work which he had made. Not moved on. Not reviewed. Rested, in the presence of a finished thing, with nothing further required of Him.

You have permission to stop in front of something finished, and it has never once been a waste of an hour. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a sentence about the seventh day reach a man sitting on a kitchen chair in his own workshop doorway, and Genesis 2:2 gives the stopping as much attention as the making.

Why other people's work is easy

Let me say why you can look at another man's joints and not your own, because the mechanism is simple.

Another man's work arrives finished. You did not watch it fail three times. You do not know which bit he had to redo, or where he ran out of the right timber, or what he would change. You get to see only what is there.

You were never comparing the same two things, and nobody else's work has ever once come with your own history attached. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man why one is easy and the other is not, and the written word has God rest in the presence of finished work in Genesis 2:2.

And what you see when you look at your own is not the object. It is every decision that went into it, including the four you are not sure about, and that is not looking at a thing, it is reviewing a process.

Which means you have never actually seen anything you have made. You have only ever seen the making of it.

You are able to look at the object itself, and the object has never once been the same as the process. His Spirit is the one who lets a man see a finished thing without the history attached, and Genesis 2:2 puts a whole day around the moment the work stopped.

Sit down for one minute

So here is the exercise, and sitting down is part of it.

Carry a chair out to where the thing is, or bring the thing in, and sit down in front of it for one minute. Sitting rather than standing, because standing is a position you can leave from.

You are able to sit down in front of something you made, and sitting has never once been self admiration. Genesis 2:2 has the rest follow the finishing rather than the next job, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes sixty seconds possible for a man who has not managed two.

Your mind will want to review. It will start on the bit you are not sure about and then move to what you would do differently. When it does, look at a different part of the thing, deliberately. That is the work in this exercise and it is harder than a day's labor.

Then say out loud that it is good. Two words. Then get up and take the chair back.

You were never required to earn the minute, and the finishing has never once had to be perfect to be finished. The Spirit of God carries a man's attention off the process and onto the thing, and the written word has God rest from all the work which He had made in Genesis 2:2.