The Part Of It That Was Actually Wrong

You have been doing a thing in your head for two weeks and it is time to do it on paper.

There is a pile of it. And in the pile there are two completely different kinds of thing, and you have been treating them as one lump, because they arrived as one lump and everybody has been talking about them as one lump.

Some of it is embarrassing.

Embarrassing is a real category and it is not nothing. Things that look bad, things that were handled poorly, things that a person would not have chosen to have in a broadcast. Embarrassing costs a business something and costs you something at your own counter and does not require anything of you beyond standing there.

And then there is the other kind.

And you have known for about eleven days that there is at least one item in that pile that is not embarrassing. It is wrong.

Not wrong as in unwise. Wrong as in a person somewhere was harmed or misled and it should not have happened and somebody ought to have said something.

Here is what has been keeping you up.

If you say that out loud, even to yourself, you have obligations you cannot see the edges of. And you do not know the route, and you do not know who to speak to, and you do not know what it costs you, and every one of those unknowns has been keeping the whole pile as one lump.

There is a verse about this and the thing it does not do is as important as the thing it does.

Rather reprove them

Paul writes a short instruction and it is uncompromising.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11, King James Version)

Reprove. That means to bring into the light, to expose, to name.

And it is set against fellowship, which in this context means going along with, having a share in, being part of the arrangement by which a thing stays covered.

You have been given a clear instruction about naming rather than about strategy, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the bringing to light. Ephesians 5:11 says reprove rather than telling anybody how, and He has been at work in you for eleven days already.

Now notice what the verse does not do, because this is where you have been stuck.

It does not give a method. It does not name a route. It does not tell anybody which office to go to or in what order or what happens next.

It says the works of darkness are to be brought into the light, and it stops.

You have been asked to name a thing rather than to plan a campaign, and it is written that the instruction is to reprove rather than to know the whole road. The Spirit of God is the one who supplies the road, and it is written in Ephesians 5 that the naming is what belongs to the person.

And here is why that distinction is going to move you.

One obligation has been getting carried as though it were four. Name it, work out the route, carry the cost, handle the consequences. And the last three cannot be done from a yard, so the first one has not been done either.

But the first one is the only one the verse asks for, and it is the only one you can actually do today.

You have one thing in front of you rather than four, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a person through the rest of it. Scripture puts the reproving on you and leaves the route out of it, and Ephesians 5:11 does not ask for a plan first.

Sort the pile

Let me be practical, because the sorting is the work and it can be done in twenty minutes.

Take one page and draw a line down the middle. On the left, everything that is embarrassing. On the right, everything that is actually wrong.

Be strict about it. Embarrassing means it looks bad and no person was harmed or misled. Wrong means somebody was.

Most of the pile will go on the left. That is usually how it turns out, and that itself is a relief, because a lump of eleven items feels like eleven wrongs and it almost never is.

You are able to reduce a lump to a list in twenty minutes, and it is written that the works of darkness are to be brought into the light rather than carried as a pile. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a man clarity when he stops thinking and starts writing, and Ephesians 5 is why the sorting matters.

And then the right hand column, and this is the whole point.

Whatever is on the right goes to somebody qualified. Not to your counter, not to a customer, not into a conversation with your own team, and not into a decision you make alone in a yard.

Somebody who actually knows what the obligations are, and what the routes are, and what protections exist. That is not something an article can tell you and it is not something to work out from first principles at two in the morning.

You are not required to know the route, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a man to the right door. The written word puts the naming with you and never once puts the method there, and Ephesians 5:11 asks for the light rather than for a strategy.

Two lists, then one appointment

So here is the thing to do, and it is this week, and it is in two parts.

Write the two lists on one page. Left column embarrassing, right column wrong. Be strict.

Then take the right hand column, whatever is on it, and book time with somebody qualified to tell you what the obligations actually are.

You are naming rather than deciding, and Ephesians 5:11 asks for the reproving and does not ask for the road. The Spirit of God is the one who is present for both halves of that, and He is not anxious about either.

And do not do anything else with either list until you have had that conversation.

Not because caution is a virtue. Because a man acting alone on a right hand column, with no idea what the obligations are, can do harm to the very people who were harmed already, and that is a real risk rather than a fear.

You have a way to be honest that does not require you to be clever, and the Holy Spirit is the one who goes into that appointment with you. It is written that the naming is what belongs to the person who sees it, and Ephesians 5 is the whole ground for making it.

Then open in the morning and stand at the counter, because that is also still yours to do.