I Stopped Counting What I Am Owed

Somebody asked you how much you are owed and you said, oh, a fair bit.

And you were not being evasive with them. You genuinely do not know. At some point in the last few months the number stopped being a number and became a general weight, and you have not looked at it properly since.

I want to say why that happened, because it is not carelessness.

Looking at it hurt. Every time you looked, there it was, and nothing about the looking changed it, so the looking was pure cost with no return. And a person stops doing a thing that is pure cost.

You are allowed to look at the real number, and a figure kept blurry has never once been a figure that got smaller.

But here is what blurry actually does, and it is the opposite of what it promises.

A known number has edges. It sits in one place. You can put it down.

A blurry number expands to fill whatever space is available. It is in the room at two in the morning. It is not a figure any more, it is a mood, and moods are much harder to carry than facts.

So the blurring did not reduce the weight. It made it shapeless.

She lighteth a candle, and sweepeth the house

There is a very short parable about a woman who has lost something, and every verb in it is practical.

Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? (Luke 15:8, King James Version)

Light a candle. Sweep the house. Seek diligently.

Three actions and not one feeling. She does not sit with the loss. She gets light into the room and then she starts moving furniture.

You are looking at a parable where the response to a loss is to bring light into the room, and looking directly at a thing has never once been described there as making it worse. Luke 15:8 says doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the candle first in that sequence.

And notice the amount. One piece out of ten.

She has nine. It is not a catastrophe and she is not destitute, and she turns her whole house over for the one anyway, and the story treats that as completely reasonable.

You have something worth turning a room over for, and an amount somebody else might call small has never once been small to the person it belongs to. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes that seriously, and it is written in Luke 15:8 with a whole house being swept for one piece.

Light first, then move

Let me follow the order in that verse, because the order is the useful part.

The candle comes first. Before the sweeping, before the seeking, there is light in the room.

For you, the candle is the actual number. Written down. On paper, with the pieces listed: this job, that date, this amount, that one.

Not because the number is pleasant. Because a thing with edges can be carried and a mood cannot.

You are able to bring light into a room before anything else happens, and a figure written on paper has never once been heavier than the same figure kept vague. The written word puts the candle at the front of the sequence, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present while somebody looks directly at a hard thing.

And here is what nearly always happens when people do this, and I mention it because it is worth knowing in advance.

The real number is usually smaller than the mood. Not always. But usually. The mood has been carrying three months of dread and the number is just a number.

And occasionally it is bigger, and that is also useful, because now it is a fact that can be acted on instead of a fog that cannot.

You have something at the end of it either way that can actually be handled, and a fact has never once been harder to carry than a fog. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the looking possible, and Luke 15:8 has the woman get light before she touches anything.

One plain sentence, today

So the assignment, and it has the candle in it and then the sweeping.

Send the message asking for it, today, in one plain sentence.

But first, light the candle. Fifteen minutes with a sheet of paper. Every job, every date, every amount. Nothing rounded and nothing left out because it feels awkward.

You are able to spend fifteen minutes with a pen tonight, and a list written out plainly has never once been worse than the version being carried around in a chest. The Spirit of God is the one who is present at a table under a lamp, and the written word puts the light before the searching.

Then the sentence. One message, to one person, today. The work, the date, the ask.

And use the actual figure in it. That is the whole point of the candle. A message with a real number in it is answerable, and a message about a fair bit is not.

You are able to put a real figure in a message, and a number said plainly has never once been a rude thing to include in a request for wages. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present while a person sends something exact, and it is written in Luke 15:8 that she swept the whole house for one piece and made no apology for it.