I Keep Waiting For Them To Go First

You thought of it at about seven and you did not do it.

It was small. It would have taken four minutes. And there was a calculation that happened so fast you barely noticed it, and the calculation said: not after this week. Not when they have not. Not while it is still their turn.

And so it did not happen, and the evening went the way the last nine evenings went, and you are not angry with anybody, and there is a ledger open in this house that neither of you has ever mentioned.

I am not going to promise you it comes back. That is the standard move: do the kind thing and watch what happens, and I am not writing that sentence, because I do not know what your spouse will do and neither does anybody, and if you go into tonight expecting a return you have simply moved the ledger rather than closed it.

And I am not going to frame this as a strategy. There is a whole genre where kindness is a technique for changing a marriage, and it is dressed up warmly and it is still a transaction, and everybody involved can feel it.

There is a reason to do it that does not depend on either of those, and it is the only reason I have got.

We love him, because he first loved us

There is a short sentence in 1 John that settles the whole question of who moves first, and it settles it by describing what already happened.

We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19, King James Version)

Because he first loved us.

It is not an instruction and it is not an encouragement. It is a report on the sequence. The whole thing began with a move that was made before there was any response to it, into a situation where there was no reason to expect one.

Nobody deserved it and nobody had gone first and there was no ledger that said it was His turn.

And that is where every bit of love that anybody has ever managed comes from. Not from being paid, and not from a good week. It comes downstream of a move that was already made.

First John 4:19 puts the first move behind everything rather than in front of it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that reach somebody standing in a kitchen at seven o'clock doing arithmetic.

You are able to move first because the first move already happened, and it has never once been your turn to wait for. First John 4:19 says we love him, because he first loved us, describing a sequence rather than issuing an instruction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that the source rather than the model.

The ledger cannot be settled

Now the practical reason the waiting has not worked, which is arithmetic rather than morality.

Both of you are keeping the accounts, and both sets are accurate, and they do not agree. You know everything you have done and roughly what they have done. They know everything they have done and roughly what you have done. Every person on earth has better records of their own effort than of somebody else's, and that is not selfishness, it is simply what a person can see.

So there is no state of the ledger where both parties agree it is settled. It is not that you have not reached it yet. It cannot be reached, ever, by any two people. First John 4:19 begins from a move made where nothing at all was owed, and the Holy Spirit is not keeping either set of books.

First John 4:19 begins from a move made without a ledger at all, and the Holy Spirit is not adjudicating whose turn it is tonight.

Which means waiting for it to be their turn is not patience. It is waiting for a number that two people cannot arrive at.

You are not waiting for a fair moment, and that moment has never once been reachable by anybody. The written word begins from a move made where nothing was owed, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a person out of an accounting that cannot close.

One small thing, and do not mention it

So here is the assignment, and the second half is the entire thing.

Do one small kind thing tonight. And do not mention it.

Small. The four minute thing you thought of at seven. Not a grand gesture, which is a different act and usually has a message in it.

And do not mention it. Not tonight, not tomorrow, and not in three weeks in a conversation about something else. Not a hint, not a small pause afterwards to see whether it was noticed.

Because the mentioning is what converts it. A kind thing that gets referenced becomes an entry in the ledger, and once it is an entry it is owed, and you are back where you started with one more line in the book.

An unmentioned kindness cannot be added to the accounts by anybody. It is the only kind that actually leaves the system. First John 4:19 has the first move made without terms and without announcement, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a good thing disappear.

They may not notice. That is a completely successful outcome and it is not a sad one, because the thing was not aimed at being noticed.

First John 4:19 has the first move made without announcement and without terms, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in four minutes that nobody hears about.

You are able to do it and let it disappear, and it has never once needed to be noticed to have counted. First John 4:19 has love beginning where nothing was owed and nothing was announced, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody doing four quiet minutes.