It has stopped being about the money.
You noticed that about ten days ago. The amount is the amount, and you would still like it, but that is not what wakes you up.
What wakes you up is the principle of it. The fact that he has not even mentioned it. The way he was at the thing on Saturday, perfectly normal, as though nothing was outstanding between you.
And that thought has been running about forty times a day for five weeks, and it is now taking up more of your life than the work itself did.
You are carrying something that costs more than it is worth, and a grievance carried all day has never once been the same thing as a debt.
Let me be careful here, because there is a version of this article that would be an insult to you.
The insult would be to tell you that you should let it go and be at peace. You have been told that. Probably by somebody who was not owed anything.
That is not what I am going to say, and this site is never going to tell you that forgiving the debt is the answer. You did the work. You are owed. That is a fact and it does not stop being a fact because it is inconvenient to carry.
What I want to look at is the forty times a day, because that is a separate object from the money and it is the one that is actually costing you.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath
There is an instruction in Ephesians that is usually quoted at people who are angry, and it is more interesting than that.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. (Ephesians 4:26, King James Version)
Be ye angry, and sin not.
The anger is permitted. That is the first clause and people skip it constantly. There is no instruction there to stop being angry, and no suggestion that the anger is the problem.
You are allowed the anger itself, and being genuinely angry about a genuine wrong has never once been the thing that verse was written against. Ephesians 4:26 says be ye angry, and sin not, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the permission in front of the limit.
And then the limit, and notice what kind of limit it is. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
It is a limit on duration rather than on intensity. The instruction is about how long a thing is carried, not about how strongly it is felt.
You have an instruction about the clock and not about the strength of it, and the length of time a man carries something has never once been the same question as whether he was right to be angry. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that distinction, and it is written in Ephesians 4:26 as a limit on the day rather than on the feeling.
What the forty times a day is for
Now let me say something about the repetition, because I do not think it is pointless and I want to give it its due.
The thought keeps coming back because it is unfinished. That is what a mind does with unfinished things: it presents them again, and again, hoping to be told that they have been dealt with.
And nothing has been dealt with. You have not said anything to him. So the mind has no reason to stop presenting it, and it will not stop, and it cannot be talked out of it.
You are being handed the same item forty times a day because nothing has been done with it, and a mind that will not let go has never once been a mind that was being unreasonable. The written word permits the anger and then limits the carrying, and the Spirit of God is the one who understands why an unfinished thing keeps coming back.
And here is what will actually stop it, and it is not peace and it is not letting go.
It is action. One message. Because the moment the thing is raised, it moves from unfinished to in progress, and the mind treats those completely differently.
You will not stop thinking about it because you decided to. You will stop thinking about it because something happened.
You have one action available that changes the category of the whole thing, and a message sent has never once left a man carrying it the same way an unsent one does. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present when something finally moves, and Ephesians 4:26 puts a limit on how long a man walks around with it.
One plain sentence, today
So the assignment, and it is aimed at the forty times rather than at the amount.
Send the message asking for it, today, in one plain sentence.
The work, the date, the ask. One line, sent before the sun goes down on this one.
You are able to send one line before tonight, and a plain request has never once been the same thing as a confrontation. The Spirit of God is the one present in a message like that, and the written word sets its limit on the length of the carrying.
And here is the rule for a man in your position, and it is the hard one.
Keep the principle out of the message. Five weeks of thinking about how he was at that thing on Saturday, all of it, left out.
That is not because the principle does not matter. It is because a message carrying five weeks of it will not get you paid and will give him something to be defensive about instead of something to answer.
You are able to put the grievance down while the sentence is being written, and a message with no heat in it has never once meant the anger underneath it was not real. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates the two long enough for a man to send something, and it is written in Ephesians 4:26 that the anger is allowed and the carrying is what has a limit on it.
And whatever comes back, you will have put it down at last, which is what you actually came here for.
So here is what I believe is going out over a man on a bench who has stopped thinking about the amount.
You are carrying something that costs more than it is worth, and a grievance carried all day has never once been the same thing as a debt. I am not telling you to let it go and I am not going to tell you that forgiving it is the answer, because you did the work and you are owed. Ephesians 4:26 says be ye angry, and sin not, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my sympathy who put the permission in front of the limit.
And this, which is the word I actually came with:
You have one action available that changes the category of the whole thing, and a message sent has never once left a man carrying it the way an unsent one does. The Spirit of God is present when something finally moves, and it is written in Ephesians 4:26 that the limit is on the length of the carrying rather than on the strength of the feeling.
One line. Monday morning. Nothing about the Saturday.
Declare this over yourself
- Forty times a day, you have never once earned me anything. Ephesians 4:26 says be ye angry, and sin not, so by the Holy Spirit I send one line before the sun goes down, in the name of Jesus.
- Saturday at the gate, you were never going in the message. The written word limits the carrying rather than the feeling, and by the Holy Spirit I write the work, the date and the ask and nothing else.
- Father, You allowed the anger outright and then put a limit on how long a man walks around with it. Your word says let not the sun go down upon your wrath, so by Your Spirit I put this down by doing something about it.
Ephesians 4:26
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