The List Grows Faster Than I Work

You did six things this month.

That is worth having in front of you before anything else, because it is true and because nobody has counted it. Six things got done in a house by a person who is tired.

And in the same month, seven more arrived. The faucet started. The gate came loose. Somebody needed something from the attic and the attic became a job. None of those were on the list in August and all of them are on it now.

So the list is one item longer than it was, and six things got done, and the arithmetic you have been running on that says the problem is your speed.

Here is the actual arithmetic. A house generates work. That is what houses do and it is not a sign of anything. What is being measured every month is not your output. It is your output minus the arrival rate, and nobody in the world has an output that beats the arrival rate of a house indefinitely.

You are a woman doing real work against an arriving list, and a list that grows while you work has never once been a report on how fast you are.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

There is a line at the end of a passage in Matthew about worry, and the last clause of it is unexpectedly practical.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:34, King James Version)

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Evil there means trouble. Difficulty. The hard things a day contains. And sufficient means enough, which in this sentence means plenty, more than enough to be going on with.

So the claim is that any given day has a full quota of difficulty in it, and that the quota belongs to that day, and that adding tomorrow trouble to today is adding to something that was already full.

You have a day with a full portion in it already, and the trouble belonging to a Tuesday has never once needed next month added to it. Matthew 6:34 gives each day its own sufficiency, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps the portions separate.

And look at the middle clause, which people skip. The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

Tomorrow is described as an agent. It is doing its own thinking. It is not an empty container that has to be filled and managed from here, and it will handle its own contents when it arrives.

You were never made responsible for a day that has not arrived, and tomorrow has never once needed anybody thinking about it in advance in order to be handled. The Spirit of God is the one who holds the days that are coming, and the written word gives tomorrow its own thought rather than assigning it to you.

The measure is the wrong one

So here is the practical claim, and it is about what is being counted.

Every month you measure the length of the list. Longer or shorter than last time. And that measure is not a measure of anybody's work at all, because it is a net figure, and a net figure includes something nobody has control over.

It measures output minus arrivals. And the arrival rate of a house is set by the age of the roof and the number of people living in it and the weather, and by nothing whatsoever about you.

You have been reading a net figure as though it were a report on yourself, and a number that includes what arrived has never once been a measure of what got done. Matthew 6:34 assigns each day its own portion, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates what is yours from what belongs to the house.

And here is the second half, and it is the reason the assignment is a number.

The gross figure has never once been calculated. Nobody counts what got done, because a finished item disappears from the list, and a thing that disappears leaves no trace at all.

So the arrivals are visible and the completions are invisible, and every month the invisible half goes uncounted.

You have six things this month that vanished the moment they were done, and a finished item has never once left a mark anywhere to be seen. The Spirit of God is the one who makes the invisible half countable, and the written word measures a day by its own sufficiency rather than by an arrears.

And one more, because the despair in this row is real and needs answering.

You were never running a race against your own house, and an arrival rate you did not set has never once been a thing anybody could outwork. Matthew 6:34 gives the day its portion and lets tomorrow do its own thinking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a woman off a race nobody entered her into.

Count what you finished, and write the number

Here is the assignment and it is a count rather than a job.

Write down the number of things you finished this month.

Go back through it. The small ones count. The ones that took four minutes count. The ones that were not on any list count, and there are several of those, because a good deal of what gets done in a house was never written anywhere.

You have a month behind you that has never once been counted, and work that left no trace has never once been work that did not happen. Matthew 6:34 gives each day its own portion, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that table while a woman counts what she actually did.

Write only the number. Not the items. Six. Nine. Whatever it turns out to be.

Then put the number where the list is kept. On the back of the page, in the same drawer, taped inside the cupboard door.

You have had one record in this house and it only ever counted arrivals, and a single column has never once been an honest account of anything. A number beside the list is a record of output, and the two together tell the truth where one of them alone has not. Matthew 6:34 gives each day its own portion, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a true account possible.

And next month, write another number. That is all. Two numbers beside a list is an accounting system, and it is the first one this house has ever had.