I Went Back Through The Job

You have been back through that job four times, and you found four things, and none of them was it.

The cut on the third piece was not perfect. You were twenty minutes late on the Tuesday. You forgot to mention the change until the end. And there was a moment where you were short with the man about the access, which you have replayed about fifteen times.

All four are real. All four are the sort of thing that happens in every job that anybody has ever done, including the good ones, including the ones where the customer sent you two other people afterwards.

And none of them explains it, which is why you went back a fifth time.

I am not going to tell you that your work was perfect, because it was not and neither is anybody's. I am going to tell you about a verse that deals with a heart that will not stop accusing, and what it says is bigger than the accusation.

God is greater than our heart

There is a sentence in John's first letter that is one of the most useful things in Scripture for a man lying awake, and it does something unusual.

It does not argue with the accusation. It goes over the top of it.

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. (1 John 3:20, King James Version)

You are standing under something greater than your own verdict, and that has never once depended on you being right about yourself. 1 John 3:20 grants that the heart may be condemning and then says God is greater than it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a yard at the end of a day with a clipboard in a man's hand.

Notice it does not say your heart is wrong. It says God is greater, and knows all things, which includes whatever your heart has found and also everything your heart does not know.

That second half is the part that frees a working man. Knoweth all things. Including why the man actually went, which your heart does not know and has been inventing for nine days.

You have a God who knows the whole of it, and your four findings have never once been the whole of it. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a line written to anxious believers reach a man going through his own job sheet for the fifth time, and 1 John 3:20 sets God above the verdict of a heart without calling the heart a liar.

What the search produces

Let me say what going back through a job actually produces, because it produces something every time.

It produces faults. It will always produce faults, because all work has them, and a man looking for a reason will find four in any job he has ever done. That is not detection. That is the nature of looking.

You were running a search that cannot come back empty, and it has never once been able to tell you anything. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what his own method guarantees, and the written word puts God above a condemning heart in 1 John 3:20.

And then the four faults do not match the size of what happened, so you keep going, because your heart has decided there must be a crime in there somewhere that is the right size. There is no crime in there the right size. Those four are just Tuesday.

So the fifth pass will produce a fifth fault and the sixth will produce a sixth, and there is no bottom to this, which is why it has to be stopped rather than finished.

You are not being prosecuted, and your own heart has never once been the court. His Spirit is the one who ends a search that cannot end on its own, and 1 John 3:20 makes God greater than the heart and the knower of everything the heart does not know.

Stop the search

So here is the exercise, and it is a stopping rather than a doing.

Stop. Not when you have found the answer, because there is not one. Now, while the question is still open, which is the only way this ever ends.

You are able to stop a search you have not finished, and stopping it has never once been carelessness. 1 John 3:20 does not resolve the heart's case, it simply puts God above it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a stop possible for a man on his fifth pass.

Take the four things you found and deal with them as what they are, which is ordinary. One of them, the moment you were short with the man, is probably worth a thought. The other three are just work.

Then do the next job. Today. Do not begin it by reviewing the last one.

You were never going to find a cause in there, and there has never once been one in there to find. The Spirit of God carries a man out of his own courtroom and into his own yard, and the written word says God is greater than our heart and knows all things in 1 John 3:20.