I Look Them Up At Night

You looked them up again last night, and you were not looking for information.

You know where they went. You know what it looks like. You have seen the photographs and you have formed a view, and none of that is new, and you went back anyway, at half past ten, sitting on the end of the bed.

And you do not even know what you are hoping for. Some nights you want to see that it is going badly, which you do not feel good about. Other nights you want to see that it is going well, so that it makes sense, and that is worse in a different way.

Either way you put the phone down and you feel slightly unwell, and then you do it again two nights later.

I am not going to tell you to stop comparing yourself to people, which is a thing nobody has ever done by being told. I am going to give you something else to do with the evening, and the something else is in a verse.

Let every man prove his own work

There is an instruction in Galatians that is aimed directly at this, and it has a phrase in it that is worth memorizing.

Paul has been talking about how people carry themselves, and then he says what a person should actually be attending to.

But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself, and not in another. (Galatians 6:4, King James Version)

You have your own work to prove, and it has never once been measured against anybody else's. Galatians 6:4 puts a person's attention on their own work and names the comparison as the thing that steals the gladness, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to the end of a bed with a lamp on at half past ten.

Look at the phrase prove his own work. Prove in the old sense, which means test it, try it, see what it is. Not defend it. Do the work and find out what it is.

And then the reason, which is the part people skip. So that a person can have gladness in themselves and not in another. Gladness that comes from comparison is borrowed from somebody else's situation, and it can be taken back at any moment.

You are able to have gladness that nobody can withdraw, and it has never once come from a photograph. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an instruction about carrying yourself reach a woman with a phone in her hand, and Galatians 6:4 sends attention back to a person's own work as the place the gladness lives.

What looking gives you

Let me say what the looking actually delivers, because it delivers something, or nobody would do it twice.

It gives you a position. For about a minute you know where you stand, and knowing where you stand is a relief even when the answer is bad. That is the whole mechanism. A bad answer is more comfortable than not knowing.

You were buying a position with your evenings, and it has never once stayed bought. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman what the looking is actually purchasing, and the written word tells every person to prove their own work in Galatians 6:4.

And the position does not hold. It lasts until the next time you wonder, which is two days, and then it has to be bought again. That is why it is every two nights and not once.

Meanwhile your own work has not been proved. The basket on the floor has the same thing in it that it had on Monday.

You have work of your own waiting, and it has never once needed anybody else's week to make it worth doing. His Spirit is the one who turns a woman's attention back to her own hands, and Galatians 6:4 locates the rejoicing in a person's own work rather than in a comparison.

Do not look. Work instead.

So here is the exercise, and it is two halves and the second half is the important one.

Do not look them up tonight. And then do one piece of your own work well instead.

You are able to leave the phone alone for one evening, and leaving it has never once been avoidance. Galatians 6:4 puts the attention on a person's own work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes one undistracted evening possible for a woman who has looked twice a week for months.

The not looking on its own will not hold. An empty evening will take you straight back, because the impulse is not about them, it is about not knowing where you stand, and an empty hour is where the not knowing lives.

So fill it with the thing in the basket. Finish it, properly, to your own standard. That is proving your own work, and it is the only thing in this whole business that will actually tell you where you stand.

You were never going to find out from them, and the answer has never once been on their page. The Spirit of God carries a woman past a habit by putting something in her hands, and the written word ties the rejoicing to a person's own proved work in Galatians 6:4.