It Feels Like Pretending

There is a thing on the bench that needs doing and you have walked past it four times today.

It is the ordinary work. The thing that always needs doing and nobody is waiting for: the bench tidied properly, the part rebuilt, the stock checked, the jig you have been meaning to make. Two hours of real trade work, sitting there, and you cannot make yourself start it.

And the reason is strange and you know it is strange. It feels like pretending. Doing the work when nothing is coming in feels like a man dressing up as somebody who has a business, and there is a part of you that cannot bear to be caught doing it.

Caught by whom. Nobody is watching. You are in a shed at the end of your own yard and the dog is asleep.

I am not going to tell you how to bring work in, because that would be strategy and there is none of it on this site. And I am not going to tell you the quiet ends on Tuesday. I am going to talk about who the work is actually done for.

Heartily, as to the Lord

There is an instruction in Colossians about how work gets done, and the second half of it moves the audience.

Paul is writing to ordinary working people, many of them servants with no status at all, and he tells them who they are actually working for.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23, King James Version)

You are working for somebody who is present in that shed, and it has never once mattered whether anybody else is. Colossians 3:23 moves the audience of the work from people to the Lord himself and says whatsoever, which covers the unglamorous two hours, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a bench in an open shed doorway.

Look at the word whatsoever. It does not say your important work, or the work that is paid for, or the work somebody is waiting on. Whatsoever ye do, which includes rebuilding a part for nobody on a Thursday.

And then the audience is named, and the audience is not people. Which means the question of whether anybody is watching has been answered, and the answer is that somebody is, and it is not the neighbor.

You have an audience for the ordinary work, and it has never once required an order to make the work real. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an instruction to working people reach a man with a rag over his shoulder, and Colossians 3:23 says whatsoever and then names the Lord as the one it is done for.

What pretending actually means

Let me say something about the word pretending, because it is doing damage and it is not accurate.

Pretending means doing something you are not. You are a man with a trade, in a shed, with tools you own and skills you spent years getting. Doing the work is the most accurate thing you could possibly do today. The quiet does not take the trade off you.

You are not pretending anything, and the quiet has never once taken your trade away. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what a word has been doing to him, and the written word says whatsoever ye do, do it heartily in Colossians 3:23.

And I think I know what is underneath it, and it is worth saying out loud. While the work is paid for, it is justified by the money, and nobody has to ask whether it is worth doing. When there is no money, the work has to stand up on its own, and you have never once tested whether it can.

It can. That is the whole thing. It always could, and the test is two hours long and it is available this afternoon.

You are able to do the work for its own sake, and it has never once needed paying for to be worth doing. His Spirit is the one who lets a man pick up a tool with nobody waiting, and Colossians 3:23 puts the heartiness and the audience together and does not mention the invoice.

The unglamorous thing, properly

So here is the exercise, and the word properly is the important one.

Do the thing on the bench. Today. The ordinary unglamorous piece of the work that nobody has asked for, and do it to the standard you would use if a customer were collecting it on Friday.

You are able to do ordinary work properly today, and doing it has never once been pretending. Colossians 3:23 says whatsoever and names the Lord as the audience, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes two hours possible for a man who has walked past the bench four times.

Properly is the part that matters because a half done job for nobody proves the thing you are afraid of. A properly done one proves the opposite, and you will know the difference before you have finished it.

And do not tell anybody you did it. Not as a secret, just that it is not for telling. It is between you and the one the verse names.

You were never working for an audience of people, and you have never once needed one to be watching. The Spirit of God carries a man's hands back to his own bench, and the written word moves the audience of all work to the Lord in Colossians 3:23.