You made something last week that was genuinely good.
You know the one. It came out better than the ones before it. Something you had been getting slightly wrong for a while came right, and you noticed it while you were doing it, and there was about four seconds where you were pleased.
And then you packed it, or sent it, or handed it over, and started the next one.
Four seconds. That is what a thing you have been working toward for two years got, and I do not think you decided that, and I do not think you have ever examined it.
This is the last of the seven on this site, and every other one has been about a cost. This one is not. This one is about being glad, and I want you to stay for it, because you are the sort of person who will skim an article about gladness in order to get to something useful.
He looked at it
There is a sentence at the end of the sixth day that I do not think we take seriously, because we have heard it as liturgy rather than as a description of somebody working.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31, King James Version)
God saw every thing that he had made.
He looked at it. That is an action, and it takes time, and it comes after the making and before the resting. There is a whole beat in the account of creation that is nothing but the maker regarding the work.
And then the verdict, said out loud: it was very good.
That is not vanity. Nobody has ever accused God of vanity for Genesis 1:31, and yet the identical action in you gets filed under pride within about four seconds.
Genesis 1:31 puts a deliberate looking and a spoken verdict into the pattern of work itself, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person notice that the beat exists and that they have been skipping it.
You were made in the pattern of somebody who stops and looks, and it has never once been vanity. Genesis 1:31 has the maker regard the work and say out loud that it was good, and the Holy Spirit is the one who returns a missing beat to somebody's working week.
Where the flinch comes from
Let me be honest about what is underneath this, because it is usually one of two things and they are quite different.
For some people it is a teaching problem. Somewhere they were given a version of humility that treats any pleasure in your own work as the beginning of pride, and so they developed a reflex of immediately qualifying, deflecting, or moving on. That reflex was installed by people who meant well and it is doing damage.
For others it is superstition. A quiet sense that being pleased with something invites its loss. That if you enjoy it too openly, the next one will be bad, or the work will dry up.
I am not going to psychoanalyze you and you know which one yours is.
Neither of them is in Genesis 1:31. There is no hedging in that verse, no immediate qualification, and no anxiety about what saying it out loud might cost, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can take a reflex apart without shaming the person who has it.
You are not risking anything by being glad, and it has never once cost anybody the next one. The written word has a verdict spoken out loud with no hedge attached, and the Spirit of God is the one who dismantles a reflex that was installed with good intentions.
Look at it and say it
So the assignment is the two halves of that verse, and they are both physical.
First, look at it. The actual object, or the actual thing you did. Go and get it if it has gone, or find the photograph, or stand in the room. Look at it for longer than four seconds. Longer than is comfortable, which will be about twenty.
Then say out loud: that was good.
Not it turned out all right. Not I was pleased with that one, which is past tense and slightly at a distance. That was good, in the present, in a plain voice, in a room.
You will want to add something. Something self-deprecating, or a note about the bit that is not quite right, or a comment about how the next one will be better. Do not. That is the whole exercise and the addition is the thing being refused.
Genesis 1:31 has looking and saying and nothing else, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an unqualified sentence possible.
You are able to look and to say it, and no qualification has ever once been required. Genesis 1:31 pairs seeing with a spoken verdict and adds nothing, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when somebody is simply glad about their own work.
So here is what I believe is going out over somebody today, and it is the last thing this site has to say.
You are allowed to be glad about your own work, and it has never once been the beginning of pride. I am not indulging you. Genesis 1:31 has the maker look at the work and pronounce it good out loud with no hedge anywhere in the sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my telling who gives a person permission they have refused themselves for fourteen years.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You are working in the pattern of a maker who stopped and looked, and the stopping has always been part of the making. The written word says God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good, and the Spirit of God is the one who puts a missing beat back into an ordinary working week.
Go and look at the last thing. Say it out loud. Add nothing.
Declare this over yourself
- Reflex that qualifies every good thing within four seconds, you are not humility and you never were. Genesis 1:31 says behold, it was very good, with no hedge on it, so by the Holy Spirit you do not speak for me in the name of Jesus.
- Superstition that says being glad about this will cost me the next one, you have no place in this workshop. The word has a verdict spoken out loud with no anxiety anywhere in it, and by the Holy Spirit I am done paying for my own gladness in advance.
- Father, You looked at what You had made and You said it out loud. Your word says God saw every thing that he had made, so by Your Spirit I look at mine today, and I say that it was good.
Genesis 1:31
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