My Team Thinks These Rules Are Mine

Somebody made a joke about it in front of you in June.

Nothing unkind. A remark, the way people remark about a thing they have got used to. Your rule. That was the phrase. They called it your rule and everybody laughed and you laughed too.

It is not your rule.

You hate that rule. You have hated it since the week it arrived. You think it slows everything down, you think whoever designed it had never stood in a room like yours, and you have never said one word of that to anybody.

And now there is a building full of people who believe you thought it up.

Eighteen months. That is how long it has been. It arrived, you ran it because you run what arrives, and at some point in the first month somebody assumed it was yours and you did not correct them, and now it is simply what everybody knows.

Here is what makes it hard, and it is not vanity.

If they think you invented that rule, then what they know about your judgment includes something that is not yours. They are working with an inaccurate picture of the man who runs the place.

And a young one who came in last year thinks that is the sort of thing you think is a good idea, and he is measuring himself against a version of you that is partly somebody else.

There is a verse about truth and love in one act, and it is more practical than it sounds.

Speaking the truth in love

Paul writes a phrase that gets used as a general principle and is actually a single instruction.

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. (Ephesians 4:15, King James Version)

Speaking the truth in love. One act, not two.

It is not: be truthful, and separately be loving. It is a single kind of speech, and the reason given for it is growth. May grow up into him in all things.

You have one act available to you rather than a balancing exercise, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies it that way. Ephesians 4:15 puts the truth and the love in the same sentence rather than in tension, and He has never once made a man choose between the two.

Now the reason it matters, because Paul gives one.

May grow up. Growth is the point. Truth spoken in love is described as the mechanism by which a body of people matures.

Which means the opposite is also true: an untrue impression left standing keeps something from growing. Not dramatically. Quietly, in the way a young man forms a picture of what good judgment looks like.

You have something growing crookedly in somebody rather than a matter of pride, and it is written that truth in love is how a body grows up. The Spirit of God is the one who cares about that young man's picture, and Ephesians 4 is where the mechanism is named.

And there is one more thing in the verse worth catching, and it takes the fear out.

Into him in all things, which is the head. The reference point is Christ. Not the arrangement, not the man in charge, and not the reputation of the operator.

That means correcting this is not about your standing. It is about what is accurate in a room, and accuracy in a room belongs to Him.

You are not defending yourself by saying it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who removes the self-interest from a correction. Scripture puts the whole thing under Christ as the head rather than under anybody's reputation, and Ephesians 4:15 is where the reference point sits.

Why eighteen months happened

Let me be fair about how it got here, because there has been a quiet shame about the eighteen months.

There was no lie in it. Nobody was misled on purpose. Somebody assumed, once, in the first month, at a busy time, and the moment passed.

And after that, correcting it started to feel like a thing. A small announcement. A man walking into a room and saying actually that was not my idea, which sounds defensive and slightly weak.

So the moment kept passing, and now it is eighteen months old and feels much larger than it is.

You have not deceived anybody, and the written word calls for truth spoken in love rather than for a record put straight. The Spirit of God is the one who can tell a passed moment from a deception, and He is not accusing you of the second.

And here is the part that makes it easy.

It does not have to be announced. Nobody has to gather. The next time somebody mentions it, and somebody will inside two weeks, you say one sentence.

That is not an announcement. That is a correction in passing, which is how almost every true thing in a working building gets communicated.

You are able to do this in one sentence in passing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a man the sentence when the moment comes. It is written that speaking the truth in love is one act rather than a proceeding, and Ephesians 4:15 is why it does not need a meeting.

One sentence, the next time

So here is the thing to do, and you do not have to start it.

The next time somebody mentions that rule, say: that one is not mine, and I have to run it anyway.

Then carry on with whatever you were doing. Do not expand. Do not say what you actually think of it. Do not invite a conversation about it.

You are correcting a fact rather than criticizing a rule, and Ephesians 4:15 says speaking the truth in love in one breath. The Spirit of God is the one present in a sentence that short, and He does not need it to be a stand.

Notice what that sentence protects. It does not tell your people the rule is bad. It does not give anybody permission to resent it. It says the rule is real and that you did not write it, and it keeps you running it.

Nobody is undermined and one thing gets accurate.

You have a way to be truthful that undermines nothing at all, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land in a young man. The written word puts the growing up under Christ rather than under any arrangement, and Ephesians 4 is where the growth is the point.

Then open in the morning and go on running the building the way you run it, and the rule is exactly what it was in June.