My Old Staff Would See Me

The job exists. That is not the problem.

The problem is that you used to run that floor. You knew the names. You did the schedule. And two of the people who would be on the shift with you were people you used to sign off on.

And every time you get as far as picking up the phone, you see a specific doorway and a specific face, and the hand goes down again.

I want to go and look at that doorway with you, because I think you have built something in it that is not there.

You are the same man in either room, and the work a pair of hands does has never once decided what a man is.

Here is the first thing I would put to you, and it is a question rather than a claim.

What do you actually think they would say. Not the feeling. The sentence.

Because when men do this exercise properly, the sentence they are dreading almost never survives being written down. It turns out to be something like, oh, you are here now, and then a normal conversation about the shift.

The dread is not about a sentence. It is about being seen, and being seen is a thing that happens in one second and then is over, and after that you are just a man at work.

He laid aside his garments, and took a towel

There is a moment in John where the person with the most standing in the room does the job of the lowest servant in it, on purpose, in front of everybody.

He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. (John 13:4, King James Version)

Laid aside his garments, and took a towel.

The verse before it says that He knew the Father had given all things into His hands. So the towel is not picked up by somebody who had run out of options. It is picked up by somebody who had everything.

You are looking at a moment where the highest standing in the room reached for the lowest job in it, and a towel has never once been a demotion in the hands of the person holding it. John 13:4 says he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the knowledge of all authority in the sentence just before it.

And notice that nobody in that room understood it. Peter objects. He finds it unbearable to watch.

The discomfort in the room was real and it did not change what was happening or make it smaller.

You have people who may find it awkward, and somebody else's discomfort at what you are doing has never once been a judgment on the work. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds a person steady while a room adjusts, and it is written in John 13 that the objection came from the man who loved Him most.

The room adjusts faster than you think

Let me tell you what actually happens on a floor when somebody comes back in a different role, because I think your imagination has been running unsupervised.

There is a first shift where it is strange for everybody. That is real and I am not going to pretend it away.

By the third shift, the floor has re sorted itself. People are thinking about their own week. The novelty of your situation lasts a few days in other people's heads and about eleven months in yours.

You are carrying a story that other people put down inside two weeks, and a thing that stays enormous to one man has never once stayed that size in a room full of people with their own problems. The written word has a whole room misread a moment and move on, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a person going through the awkward first hour.

And here is the harder half, and I am not going to soften it.

Two of them will handle it badly. Not out of cruelty. Out of not knowing what to say, which produces either too much cheerfulness or too little.

That is a thing you will get through, and it is survivable, and the two of them will be normal about it by the second week.

You are able to get through two awkward conversations, and an uncomfortable few minutes have never once cost a man anything he actually had. The Holy Spirit is the one who is in the room during an awkward exchange, and John 13:4 has a man take up the towel with a whole table watching and not understanding.

Take it, and say why out loud

So the assignment, and the second half of it is the part that matters most here.

Take the shift, and tell one person plainly what you are doing and why. John 13:4 has the one with everything in his hands reach for a towel in front of a full room, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present while a man says out loud what he has decided.

The telling is not confession. It is the thing that stops other people having to guess, and guessing is what produces the awkwardness you are dreading.

One sentence, said plainly, to one person. I am back on the floor, the money is needed at home, and I am glad of the work.

You are able to say one flat sentence without an apology in it, and a man stating his own situation has never once lost standing by stating it. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a man a level voice, and the written word has the towel taken up in the open rather than quietly.

And say it early. In the first week, to one person, before anybody has had time to build a version of it for you.

You are able to get ahead of the story this week, and a plain account given first has never once been the thing that made a room awkward. The Holy Spirit is the one who goes into a break room ahead of a man, and it is written in John 13:4 that He rose from the table and did it in front of them.