I See It Every Day And I Have Stopped Seeing It

You go past it on the way to the kettle.

Every morning, in the same four seconds, in the same direction. And you do not look at it any more, which you would probably describe as having got used to it.

I do not think you have got used to it. I think something smaller and more expensive is happening, and it happens in about half a second, and it has happened roughly four hundred times.

Here is what it is. Your eye lands on it. Some part of you registers the thing you said you would do. And a very small amount of something goes out of you, not enough to notice on any given morning, and then you carry on to the kettle and the day starts.

Four hundred times is the part that matters. Nobody is defeated by an unpainted wall. People are worn down by four hundred half seconds, and because no single one of them is significant, it never gets identified as the thing that is happening.

So you have a wall, and you have a year, and you have a low grade sense that you are somebody who does not finish things. And that last part is not true, and it is the most expensive thing in the house.

Is it time for you to dwell in your cieled houses

There is a question in Haggai asked of people who had stopped in the middle of something, and the tone of it is not what people expect.

Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? (Haggai 1:4, King James Version)

Is it time for you.

The context is a building project that had been abandoned partway. The foundation was laid and then the work stopped, for reasons that were entirely understandable at the time, and years went by, and everybody got on with their own houses while the thing stood unfinished.

And God asks a question rather than issuing an accusation. He does not tell them what they are. He points at the situation and asks them to look at it.

That is a mercy and it is easy to miss. He could have opened with a verdict. Instead there is a question, which requires them to actually look at the unfinished thing they had stopped seeing, and looking is what nobody had done for years.

And notice the word waste. Not ruined, not lost. Lying waste, which is a thing that is still there and could still be built, and which is doing nothing in the meantime.

You are being asked to look rather than sentenced for stopping, and heaven has never once opened this conversation with a verdict. Haggai 1:4 puts a question in front of people who had stopped part way, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a mercy rather than an accusation.

Looking is the thing you have not done

Here is the practical claim, and it is the whole of the article.

You have not looked at that wall in about a year.

You have seen it four hundred times and looked at it none. Those are different acts. Seeing is what your eye does at speed on the way past. Looking is standing in front of a thing with your body stopped, on purpose, for long enough that it becomes a specific object rather than a symbol.

And the reason it matters is that a symbol cannot be worked on. At the moment that wall is not a wall, it is evidence in a case about your character, and nobody starts a job that is evidence. It is too heavy to pick up.

Two minutes of looking turns it back into a wall. That is a physical surface with a specific amount of work remaining, most likely much less than the version of it you have been carrying, and a specific amount of work is a thing a person can consider doing on a Tuesday.

You are able to turn a symbol back into an object, and it has never once been the wall that was heavy. The written word asks a question that forces a look at what was abandoned, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a person stand in front of their own unfinished work without flinching.

Two minutes. Time it

So here is the assignment and it is deliberately absurd.

Stand in front of one unfinished thing and time two minutes of looking at it.

Use a timer, because without one you will do about eleven seconds and believe it was two minutes.

You are not going to work on it. You are not going to plan it. You are not going to work out what it needs, and if you find yourself doing that, come back to looking. This is not a planning exercise dressed up.

You are going to stand there and look at it for two minutes, and it will be uncomfortable, and about ninety seconds in something will shift slightly, because that is roughly how long it takes for a symbol to turn back into a surface.

And then walk away. Do nothing tonight.

Haggai 1:4 asks the question rather than assigning the task, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in two minutes that produce nothing at all.

You are able to stand and look for two minutes, and it has never once obliged you to start. Haggai 1:4 calls the unfinished thing waste rather than ruin, and the Spirit of God is the one who is standing there with you while you do it.