I Enforce A Rule I Broke Myself

You held him to it on Tuesday and something turned over in your chest.

He had done a thing. Not a large thing. The rule is clear about it and he knew the rule, and you said what needed saying and it took about a minute and he took it well.

And then you went into the back and stood there.

Because eleven years ago you did the same thing. Worse, actually. Same category, larger version, and nobody ever found out, and you have never told one person on this earth.

So every time a situation like Tuesday comes up, and it comes up three or four times a year, there is a second thing happening inside you that nobody in the room knows about.

You have started to dread those conversations. Not because they are hard. Because of what they do to you afterward.

And you have begun to soften them, which you noticed in the spring. You went slightly gentler on somebody than the situation called for, and afterward you could not tell whether that had been mercy or whether it had been a man paying off his own debt with somebody else's discipline.

That is the question, and there is a verse that gets misread about this constantly.

Thou that judgest doest the same things

Paul writes a sentence that is usually used to shut people up, and it is more specific than that.

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. (Romans 2:1, King James Version)

Notice the word he uses. Judgest.

Not administers. Not corrects. Not holds to a standard. Judges, which in this context means passes a verdict on a person, and the whole chapter is about people who look down on others.

You have not been doing what that verse describes, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is exact about that. Romans 2:1 addresses a man passing a verdict on somebody rather than a man running a rule, and He is not the one who has been standing in that back room accusing you.

That distinction is the whole article, so let me make it plain.

Applying a rule is a job. Somebody has to do it and it is not a moral position. Tuesday was not a man being told he is worse than the one telling him. It was a man being told this is the rule and here is where we are.

Judging is different. Judging is when the correction carries a verdict, and a person can feel it when it does.

You are able to run a rule without judging a man, and it is written that the inexcusable thing is the judging rather than the doing of a job. The Spirit of God is the one who can tell those apart, and it is written in Romans 2 which one is the problem.

And there is something you should notice about Tuesday.

He took it well. That is worth attending to. A man who is being judged does not take it well; he goes quiet or goes defensive, and both of those show.

He took it well because there was no verdict in it. You did the job. Which means the accusation in the back room afterward came from somewhere other than that conversation.

You have been accused by something other than the truth, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names the actual source of an accusation. Scripture puts the condemnation on the man passing verdicts rather than on the man holding a standard, and Romans 2:1 is not it.

The eleven year old thing

Now the real subject, because the rule is not the problem.

There is a thing eleven years old that nobody knows about, and it has never been said out loud to a single human being, and that is what turns over in your chest three or four times a year.

Let me be careful and plain here. Whether that thing needs to be told to anybody, and whether it has any consequences that are still live, is not something an article can decide, and if there is a question of that kind it belongs with somebody qualified to advise you.

What can be said is this: an unspoken thing keeps its full original size for as long as it stays unspoken.

You have been carrying something at its original weight for eleven years, and the written word never once asked anybody to hold a thing in silence forever. The Spirit of God is the one who has known the whole of it for eleven years, and He has not been standing at a distance for one of them.

And here is the part that touches the softening.

You went gentle on somebody in the spring, and you could not tell whether it was mercy or payment. That uncertainty is the cost of the silence, not evidence of a bad motive.

A man who has said his thing out loud and had it dealt with can be gentle and know why he is being gentle. A man carrying an unspoken thing can never be sure.

You are able to know your own motives again, and the Holy Spirit is the one who returns that clarity. It is written that the condemnation belongs to the judging rather than to the past, and He returns it through the thing being said rather than through more thinking.

Say it out loud once

So here is the thing to do, and it is on your own, and it is out loud.

Say the thing you did. Out loud. In plain words. No softening and no context and no explanation of why.

Then say: that is dealt with.

You are saying something that has never been said rather than confessing to anybody, and Romans 2:1 puts the trouble in the judging rather than in the history. The Spirit of God is the one who receives it, and He has known it for eleven years without once bringing it up.

The reason it has to be out loud is that eleven years of silent knowing has kept it at full size, and a thing said out loud in a room shrinks, every single time, without exception.

And the reason the second sentence matters is that the first one on its own is just a disclosure. The second one is the truth about it, and the truth is that it was dealt with a long time ago and only one person has not accepted that.

You have been the last one holding a case that was closed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who closed it. The written word puts the verdict-passing on the man rather than the past on him, and Romans 2:1 was never the verse standing over you.

Then go in and run the rule the next time it comes up, and do the job.