I Did Not Let Myself Enjoy It

You made something genuinely good last week and you did not let yourself enjoy it for even a minute.

You knew it was good. That is the thing. There was a moment when you looked at it and something in you said yes, that is right, that is exactly what I was trying to do.

And then within about thirty seconds you had moved. You put it down, you wrote the next thing on the list, and by the evening it had been folded into the ordinary run of everything and it was gone.

Nobody took it from you. There was no voice and no rebuke and nobody said anything. You simply did not stop, and it did not occur to you to.

I am not going to tell you to celebrate yourself, and I am not going to turn this into a lesson about humility, which would take the one good thing straight off you. I am going to show you what God did at the end of the sixth day.

And, behold, it was very good

There is a sentence at the end of Genesis 1 that everybody knows and almost nobody reads slowly, and there is a pause in it.

Everything has been made. And then, before anything else happens, there is this.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31, King James Version)

You are allowed to look at what you made and say that it is good, and it has never once been pride to do it. Genesis 1:31 has God stop, look at the work, and say the words rather than moving on to the seventh day, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a table with one finished thing on it and three people looking down at it.

Notice the order of the verbs. He saw. And then the verdict. Looking comes first and the saying comes second, and both of them happen before the day is allowed to end.

And notice the word behold, which is a word for stopping. It is not a word anybody uses in passing. It means look at this, and it is God saying it about His own work.

You have permission from the highest possible place, and it has never once needed to be earned. The Spirit of God is the one who makes the end of the sixth day reach somebody standing over a finished piece at a table, and Genesis 1:31 puts the seeing and the saying before the evening comes.

The thirty seconds

Let me say what happens in those thirty seconds, because it is not humility and it is not busyness.

Stopping would mean standing still in front of something good with nothing to do, and that is an exposed position. A person who is moving is not being looked at. So the list gets written, and the next thing gets started, and nobody ever finds out what would have happened if you had stayed there.

You were never asked to keep moving, and stopping has never once been the same as boasting. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows somebody what those thirty seconds are protecting, and the written word has God stop and look at His own work before the day ends in Genesis 1:31.

And here is the cost, and it is not a feeling. You do not have anything. Every good thing you have made in four years has been folded into the run of ordinary days, and so on a hard week there is nothing to draw on, because none of it was ever actually received.

It happened. You were there. And you have almost no record of any of it.

You are able to receive one good thing, and receiving it has never once made anybody vain. His Spirit is the one who keeps somebody standing still for a moment they have always skipped, and Genesis 1:31 has the looking and the verdict recorded before the evening and the morning.

Look at it, and say the words

So here is the exercise, and it is two verbs and they are in the order the verse uses.

Look at the last thing you made. Properly, for a moment, with nothing in your hands and nothing being written down.

You are able to stop and look, and looking has never once been self congratulation. Genesis 1:31 has the seeing come before the saying and both come before the day is over, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes one still moment possible for somebody who has moved within thirty seconds for years.

Then say out loud that it was good. Those words, or near enough. Not that it was your best and not that it was perfect. It was good.

Say it in the room where you made it if you can, and say it to nobody. This is not for an audience. It is the second verb in the verse, and it belongs to the person who did the work.

You were never going to be made proud by two words, and it has never once happened to anybody. The Spirit of God carries somebody into a pause they have always walked through, and the written word puts the word behold in the mouth of God about His own finished work in Genesis 1:31.