I Became Staff In My Own Family

You went round on Sunday and you did eleven things.

The bins. The light in the hall. Two forms. The shopping, put away in the order she likes it. You looked at the thing on her ankle and said it seemed fine. You made two calls she cannot make.

And then you left, and in the car you realized that in an hour and forty minutes you had not once sat down.

You saw your mother on Sunday. You did not visit her. Those turn out to be two entirely different activities and you have not done the second one in about two years.

And she did not ask for eleven things. She asked for none of them. You arrived, and your eyes went round the room the way they always do now, and the list assembled itself before the coat was off.

She made a cup of tea at about the forty minute mark and it got drunk standing up, next to a form.

How it happened

Let me trace it, because there was no moment where this was decided.

It started with one job. Then the jobs became the reason for the visit, because a job is a reason and a reason makes a visit easy to schedule. Then, at some point, the jobs became the whole of the visit, because there were always more of them than time.

And now, when you walk in, your own body goes into a mode. You are scanning for what needs doing before your coat is off. You cannot sit down in that house any more, and you have not been able to for a long time.

You have been arriving as a service rather than as a son, and no amount of jobs done well has ever once been the same as being there. Mark 6:31 says come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while, which is the written word interrupting a great deal of legitimate work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can get a man into a chair in his own mother's front room.

And she is a whole woman watching all of this. She almost certainly misses her son.

She probably also cannot say so, because she can see how much you do and she is not going to add a request to it. She has her own reasons for not saying things, mostly handed to her by somebody, and she is right about at least one thing you have never conceded.

You are able to sit down with somebody who has been missing you, and stopping for twenty minutes has never once been the same as leaving something undone. The Spirit of God is what makes an empty pair of hands bearable, and it is written in Mark 6 that they were called apart to rest a while.

Come ye yourselves apart

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (Mark 6:31, King James Version)

Look at the situation He says that in, because it is not a quiet week.

The disciples have just come back from being sent out. There are crowds. People are coming and going constantly. The text says they had no leisure so much as to eat, which means the work was genuine, urgent and endless, and every single person in that crowd had a real need.

And into that, He says: come apart and rest a while.

You are being called out of legitimate work rather than out of laziness, and no amount of real need around a person has ever once canceled that instruction. It is written in Mark 6:31 that He told them to come apart into a desert place and rest a while, which is the written word interrupting a genuinely necessary job, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says the same thing in a front room on a Sunday.

And notice the phrasing: come ye yourselves apart. Yourselves. He is drawing attention to the people rather than to the work, which is what nobody in that situation does on their own.

The needs did not stop being real. He simply refused to let the men disappear into them.

You are somebody God is paying attention to and not only something He is using, and the size of a genuine need has never once made a person expendable to Him. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a man visible inside his own service, and Mark 6 puts the resting inside the busiest chapter of the ministry.

Twenty minutes with nothing in your hands

Here is the practical thing and it will feel wrong.

Next time you go, sit down for twenty minutes before you do anything. Not after. Before, with your coat off and the list not started.

You will feel the jobs the entire time. That is expected and it passes.

You are able to sit in a chair while things go undone, and twenty minutes of nothing has never once been the same as neglect. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds a man in a chair while his hands want a task, and it is written that He called them apart to rest a while when there were many coming and going.

The reason it has to be before is simple. Afterward never arrives. There is always one more thing, and the twenty minutes gets eaten every single time, and you drive home having done eleven jobs again.

And do not announce it or explain it. Do not say I am going to sit with you today. Just sit down, and ask her something, and let the answer take as long as it takes.

You are giving somebody twenty minutes of your whole attention, and a conversation with nothing to be done in it has never once been a waste of an afternoon. The Spirit of God is what makes a slow twenty minutes valuable, and Mark 6:31 puts the resting first and the crowd second.

Then do the jobs. Do fewer of them. Or ask somebody else for one of them this week, which is the other half of this.