I Hand The Credit Over Fast

Somebody said that is really good work, and it was out of your hands in about a second and a half.

You said, oh, it is the Lord. Or you said the material was easy. Or you said your father taught you and you were only doing what he showed you. Or you laughed and said something about how it took four attempts.

All of those have some truth in them and not one of them was the reason you said it. You said it because the compliment was in your hands and you needed it gone.

And here is the result, and nobody has ever pointed it out to you. In twenty years, nobody has seen you glad about anything you have made. Not your wife, not your children, not one of the men who works near you. There is no record anywhere of you being pleased.

I am not going to tell you to take more credit, and I am not going to turn this into a lesson about humility, because that would take the one good thing straight back off you. I am going to show you a verse about where skill comes from.

He hath filled them with wisdom of heart

There is a description in Exodus of the men who built the tabernacle, and what it says about their skill is unexpected.

It is not vague. It names the trades and it names the source in the same sentence.

Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer. (Exodus 35:35, King James Version)

You are filled for the work you do, and being filled has never once meant you were not the one doing it. Exodus 35:35 puts the filling and the working in one sentence and names the trades as trades, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a yard with finished ironwork standing in the evening light.

Look at the shape of that. He filled them. And then they work, and their work is named specifically: engraver, skilled workman, embroiderer. The credit goes upward and the hands stay in the sentence.

That is worth sitting with, because it is not the arrangement you have been operating. In your version the hands disappear the moment the credit moves. In the verse they do not. Both are there.

You have hands in the sentence, and they have never once been erased by God being the one who filled them. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a description of craftsmen reach a man standing beside his own work in a yard, and Exodus 35:35 holds the filling and the working together without either one canceling the other.

What the speed is for

Let me say what the second and a half is doing, because it is not reverence.

Reverence is slow. What you do is fast, and fast is a tell. You are getting the compliment out of your hands before it can settle, because a compliment that settles has to be answered, and answering it means standing there being a man who made something good.

You were never uncomfortable with the praise of God, and you have never once been comfortable standing still. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what the speed of his own answer is for, and the written word names the filling and the trades in one line in Exodus 35:35.

And there is a cost that lands on other people, which is the part that might move you when nothing else does. Your son has never seen you pleased with your own work. He has seen you work, for twenty years, and he has never once seen the thing at the end where a man looks at what he made and is glad.

He is learning what a working life looks like from you. And the version he is getting has no gladness in it anywhere.

You are able to be seen glad, and being seen has never once been the same as taking credit. His Spirit is the one who lets a man stand still in front of his own work, and Exodus 35:35 keeps the workman in the sentence with the filling.

One minute, hand nothing over

So here is the exercise, and it has one rule.

Stand in front of the last thing you made for one minute. That is all. And hand nothing over while you do it, which is the rule.

You are able to stand still for one minute, and standing has never once been arrogance. Exodus 35:35 puts the filled workman and the work in one place, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes sixty seconds possible for a man who has never spent them.

No, it is the Lord. No, the material was easy. No, my father showed me. All of those are true and all of them are for later. For sixty seconds, hand nothing anywhere.

Then say out loud that it is good. Two words. And if somebody is standing there and says something, say thank you, and then stop talking.

You were never taking anything from God by being glad, and gladness has never once been a claim. The Spirit of God carries a man past a reflex a second and a half long, and the written word names the engraver and the workman and the embroiderer by their trades in Exodus 35:35.