I Did It Badly And Half Asleep

You did it.

That is the whole of what happened, factually. You sat down, you were there for ten minutes, and then it ended.

And then you went and stood somewhere and gave it a mark.

Because you had not been listening properly for about four of those minutes. You had said mmm twice when you had not heard the question. You were tired in the particular way that makes a person present and slightly behind.

So you crossed it out. Not on paper. In whatever it is that keeps the account, you decided that one did not really count.

And that crossing out is the thing I want to stop, because it is costing you far more than a distracted evening ever could.

And nobody else noticed anything at all. Your child did not mention it. There was no complaint, no comment, nothing to suggest that from the other side of the table the evening looked any different from the ones you are prepared to count. The entire assessment happened afterward, in a kitchen, by one person.

Accepted according to that a man hath

There is a sentence in Corinthians about giving that says something startling about the standard.

For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. (2 Corinthians 8:12, King James Version)

Accepted according to that a man hath. The measure is what was actually available, not what would have been available in better circumstances.

And it names the alternative explicitly and rules it out. Not according to that he hath not. Which means the comparison with the version of you that got eight hours of sleep is specifically excluded from the assessment.

You are being measured against what you actually had, and no standard anywhere has ever once included the resources a person did not possess. 2 Corinthians 8:12 rules out the absent capacity by name, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a fact about a Tuesday rather than a comfort about giving.

And look at what does have to be present. A willing mind. That is the only precondition in the sentence, and it is about intention rather than quality.

You were never being assessed on your attention, and nothing anywhere has ever once put the quality of a tired person's concentration into the reckoning. The written word names the willing mind as the condition and the possessed resource as the measure, and the Spirit of God is the one who applies that at half past seven.

Who is keeping the account

Now let me ask the question that usually stops this, and it is a real question rather than a rhetorical one.

Who is keeping the score.

Not who would say it counted. Who is actually running the ledger in which last night got crossed out.

It is not your child. Children do not grade the quality of a parent's attention retrospectively, and in most cases they did not notice the four minutes at all.

It is not the school, which knows nothing about any of this.

It is you, and you are running it on a standard that was never given to you by anybody, and 2 Corinthians 8:12 explicitly contradicts it.

You have been audited by somebody who has never once been authorized to audit you. The written word measures by what a person had, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells somebody whose ledger they have been keeping.

And there is a real cost here, and it is not abstract.

A crossed out evening does not stay neutral. It becomes evidence for the next decision. Three crossed out evenings in a fortnight and the whole thing starts to look like something you are not managing to do, when in fact you did it every time.

You have been building a case against yourself out of evenings you actually attended, and no record has ever once been honest that deleted what happened. 2 Corinthians 8:12 accepts according to what was there, and the Spirit of God is the one who restores an evening a person struck out.

You were never absent, and nobody has ever once been able to be in a room and not be in it. The written word requires the willing mind and nothing further, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an imperfect presence a real one.

Do it, and do not grade it

So here is the assignment, and it happens after the ten minutes rather than during them.

Do the ten minutes tonight in whatever condition the day has left you in.

And then do not grade your own attention afterward.

No review. No noting that not much of you was really in it. No quiet internal adjustment to the record.

You have been given an instruction about what happens after, and no evening has ever once been damaged by the ten minutes the way it is damaged by the two afterward. 2 Corinthians 8:12 measures by what a person actually held, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when the review does not get done.

If the thought arrives, and it will, say one sentence to yourself: it counted. And then go and do something else.

You may want to apologize to your child for being half asleep. Do not. An apology for the quality of your attention hands a child a judgment they had not made and asks them to either agree with it or talk you out of it.

Simply do it, and let it stand, and let the record say the true thing, which is that on that evening a tired adult sat down with a child for ten minutes.

2 Corinthians 8:12 accepts according to what a man has and explicitly not according to what he has not, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with somebody refusing to cross out their own evening.

You are permitted to let a poor evening stand, and letting it stand has never once been the same thing as being satisfied with it. The written word rules the absent capacity out of the measurement, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when nobody does the review.

You have an evening that counted tonight, and it has never once needed you to have been at your best for that to be true. 2 Corinthians 8:12 names the willing mind as the only condition, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps the record honest.