I Do Not Know How To Be Pleased

It comes out before the compliment has finished.

Somebody says the room looks good, and before they are at the end of the sentence there is already something coming out of you. It was mostly the light. It took much longer than it should have. You cannot see it from there, but the corner is a mess.

And they say something kind about that too, and the conversation moves on, and everybody is perfectly comfortable except for the thing that happened, which is that a good report about your own work was intercepted and taken apart before it landed.

It happens every time. That is the part worth noticing. Not sometimes. Every time, in about half a second, faster than a decision.

And the usual name for that is modesty, and it is not modesty.

Modesty is a choice about how much to say. This is a reflex that prevents something from being received, and those two are not related, and calling one by the name of the other has kept it from ever being looked at.

You are a woman who has never been taught this, and discounting your own work has never once been modesty in anybody.

He will rejoice over thee with singing

There is a line in Zephaniah that most people find slightly uncomfortable to read about themselves, and the discomfort is worth going through rather than around.

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17, King James Version)

He will rejoice over thee with singing.

Read that with yourself as the object and notice what happens. Something in you moves to qualify it, or to soften it, or to apply it to somebody more deserving.

That is the same reflex that meets the compliment at the door, and it is running on scripture now, which tells you how deep it goes and how little it has to do with the size of the thing being received.

You have a reflex that intercepts a good report from any direction, and a deflection that runs on a verse has never once been about the merit of the work. Zephaniah 3:17 puts the rejoicing on God rather than on anybody deserving it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it possible to read that sentence without qualifying it.

And notice who is doing the rejoicing. Not the person being rejoiced over. Somebody else entirely.

That matters, because it means the receiving is not a thing you have to generate. It is a thing already happening that a person either takes in or does not, and the taking in is the only part that is yours.

You were never required to produce the gladness, and a thing already being done over you has never once needed you to feel it first. The Spirit of God is the one doing the rejoicing, and the written word puts the whole of that action on His side of the sentence.

It is a skill and nobody taught it

So here is the practical claim, and the whole of the relief is in it.

Receiving a good report is a learned skill, in exactly the way that not interrupting is a learned skill. It is taught to some people and not to others, and the ones who were not taught it did not fail at it, they simply were never shown.

If nobody ever said well done to you in a way you were allowed to just take, then the instrument for taking it was never built.

You have a missing skill rather than a fault, and something that was never taught has never once been something anybody failed at. Zephaniah 3:17 has somebody else doing the rejoicing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who builds what was not built.

And here is the mechanism, which is the useful part.

The qualifier is what does the damage. Not the modesty and not the tone. The specific clause on the end of the sentence, which arrives to make the statement safe, and which prevents the statement from ever standing on its own.

Take the qualifier off and the sentence stands. That is all this needs and it is much smaller than it sounds.

You have a sentence available with nothing on the end of it, and a plain statement about your own work has never once been a boast. The Spirit of God is the one present in the silence after an unqualified sentence, and Zephaniah 3:17 rejoices without one word of qualification anywhere in it.

And one more, because this is not a demand for confidence.

You were never being asked to feel differently about it, and saying a plain thing has never once required anybody to believe it first. Zephaniah 3:17 describes what is being done rather than what anybody feels about it, and the Holy Spirit is the one present whether or not the feeling arrives.

One sentence, no qualifier, count to three

Here is the assignment and the counting is the mechanism.

Say one plain sentence about the finished work with no qualifier on the end of it.

The room came out well. I am pleased with the shelves. That is a good job. Whatever the plain version is.

You have one unqualified sentence available tonight, and a plain statement with nothing after it has never once been the same as boasting about anything. Zephaniah 3:17 rejoices without qualifying, and the Holy Spirit is the one present while a woman says something about her own work and leaves it there.

And then count to three before speaking again.

That is the whole of the design. The qualifier lives in the second and a half after the sentence. If nothing is said for three seconds, it cannot get out, and the sentence has to stand on its own for three seconds, which is longer than any sentence about your own work has stood in years.

It will be uncomfortable. That discomfort is the exact size of the reflex being interrupted, and it is useful information about how strong the thing is.

Say it to somebody, or say it to nobody in an empty room. Either works. The reflex does not care whether there is an audience, which is how you know it was never really about modesty.

Then carry on with the evening.