I Made Carrying It A Virtue

Somewhere in the last fifteen years, carrying it stopped being what you do and became what you are.

That is the sentence I want to put in front of you, and I suspect you will recognize it and dislike it in about equal measure.

Because it happened by increments, and every increment was praised. Your father said it about you. Two men at church have said it about you. Your wife says it with real affection. He carries it, all of it, and he never complains.

And you have heard that enough times that it has become an account of your character rather than a description of your Tuesdays.

Which means that putting any of it down is no longer a practical decision. It is a change in who you are, and it would need explaining, and somebody would probably be worried about you.

So you carry all of it, and it is now genuinely part of your standing in this family, and you are fifty three and you have started to notice something about your own tiredness that you have not said to anybody.

There is a verse in Hebrews about ceasing from work that I want to put next to that, because it does something with rest that the word rest usually does not.

He also hath ceased from his own works

There is a sentence in Hebrews about rest that describes it as an active thing that somebody enters and something that gets ceased from.

For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:10, King James Version)

You have a verse in the written word where entering rest and ceasing from work are the same act, and no amount of being the man who carries it has ever once exempted you from either half. Hebrews 4:10 puts the entering and the ceasing together rather than making rest a reward for finishing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that to a man whose work has become his character.

Look at the phrase his own works. Not the works. His own.

That is precise. It is not saying all work stops. It is saying that a particular category, the works a man has generated himself, is the thing ceased from.

You are able to cease from your own works while remaining the man in this house who leads it, and one has never once required the other. It is written that he that is entered into his rest hath ceased from his own works, which specifies a category rather than everything, and the Spirit of God is what shows a man which of his loads he assigned himself.

And then the comparison at the end, which is the strongest thing in the verse. As God did from his.

God ceased. On the seventh day, having made everything, He stopped, and nothing about the stopping was a failure of anything.

That is the model. Not a man who has run out. Somebody who finished a thing and put it down deliberately, and the putting down was part of the work rather than the end of his competence.

You are able to stop deliberately rather than because you have run out, and no version of that has ever once been the same thing as failing. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates ceasing from collapsing in a man's own understanding, and Hebrews 4 puts God's own stopping forward as the pattern.

Now, I want to be careful here, because you are a serious man and you will hear this as an invitation to be less. It is not. Nothing in this article suggests you carry less than you should. It suggests that the ceasing is also part of what a man does, and that it has been missing.

When a load becomes a name

Now the practical part, and it is about the mechanism, because the mechanism is what has trapped you.

A practical load can be renegotiated. If you carry something because it makes sense, then when it stops making sense you put it down and nobody thinks anything of it.

But a load that has become part of your name cannot be renegotiated, because putting it down is not a change of arrangements, it is a change of identity. And identity changes have to be announced, defended and survived.

You are able to put down a load without changing who you are, and no amount of it being praised has ever once made it part of you. The Spirit of God is what separates a man from his own load, and it is written that the ceasing is from a man's own works rather than from himself.

And here is what has made it worse rather than better. Every time somebody has praised you for it, the load has been fastened on tighter. Fifteen years of well meant admiration has built a thing you now cannot get out of without an explanation.

That is not anybody's fault. Nobody was fastening anything. It is simply what praise does to a behavior over fifteen years.

You are not trapped by anybody's opinion of you, and fifteen years of being commended has never once been a contract. It is written as God did from his, which puts the ceasing in the hands of the one doing the work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who cuts a man loose from something he was admired into.

And here is the part about your children, which is the reason to act rather than to think about it. They are watching what a man is. And at the moment what they are learning is that a man is somebody who holds all of it and never stops, which is admirable and false and will cost one of your sons about twenty years.

Put one down where somebody can see

So here is the assignment, and the second half of it is the one that does the work.

Put down one thing this family has commended you for carrying. And let somebody see you not doing it.

Choose the thing first. Something small enough to be survivable and visible enough to be noticed. Not the money and not the driving. Something like: the loading of the car, or the being last to bed, or the always being the one who deals with whatever happens at eleven at night.

You are able to choose one thing and cease from it, and its size has never once been what makes the ceasing real. Hebrews 4:10 has the ceasing be from a man's own works, one category at a time, and the Spirit of God is with a man deciding which one to put down first.

Then the visible half. Do not do it quietly and hope nobody notices. Sit down while somebody else does the thing, in the room, where it can be seen.

Because a load put down in private is not put down. It is postponed, and you will pick it up again on Thursday. A load put down in front of people has been actually released, and the household adjusts around the new fact rather than around your intention.

You are able to be seen not doing it, and being seen has never once been you making a point at anybody's expense. It is written that God ceased and that the ceasing is recorded plainly rather than hidden, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a man sitting in a chair while somebody else carries something.

And somebody will say something. Probably a joke. Take the joke, do not explain yourself, and stay in the chair.