The Same Load Of Laundry, Moving

It comes out of the machine. It goes on the rack or in the dryer. It comes off the rack into a basket. The basket goes upstairs and lives on a chair for two days.

Then it goes into drawers, or most of it does, and by the time the last of it is in a drawer there is another load in the machine, which is the same load, wearing different clothes.

There is no end to it. That is not a complaint about the volume. The volume is fine. It is that the shape of the thing is a circle, and a circle does not have a place where a person can stand and say that is finished.

And a chair with clean laundry on it is not neutral. It sits there in your eyeline all week looking like evidence.

I am not going to tell you how to stay on top of it. That is a system and this is not that kind of place. And I am not going to tell you to find the beauty in it, because you are not short of beauty, you are short of a stopping point.

Whatsoever ye do

There is a line in Colossians written to people doing work that nobody would have called meaningful, and it does something with the word whatsoever that I want you to see.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23, King James Version)

Whatsoever. That word is doing all the work in the sentence.

It is not a word you use about the important tasks. Nobody says whatsoever about a wedding or a rescue. Whatsoever is the word you reach for when you are gathering up everything that did not qualify for a category, which is exactly where a basket of towels lives.

You are doing work that Scripture gathered up on purpose, and none of it was left outside the sentence. Colossians 3:23 says whatsoever ye do, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts a household task inside a word that most people reserve for something bigger.

And then the second half, which is the part that changes the direction of the whole thing. As to the Lord, and not unto men.

The work does not go to the people whose clothes those are. It goes somewhere else. It leaves your hands and it is received, and the receiving is not being done by anybody who lives in your house.

You have been handing that work to Christ, and it has been received on every single circuit of that basket. It is written in Colossians 3:23 that the work goes as to the Lord and not unto men, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes that true of a towel and not only of a sermon.

A circle is not a failure to finish

Here is the thing that I think is actually wearing you, and it is not the folding.

A circular task is being measured with a linear ruler. Finished is the wrong category. It was always the wrong category, and the shame that comes off that chair every evening is the shame of failing at something that was never available.

Nobody finishes laundry. Nobody has ever finished laundry. A person who says they are on top of it is at a low point in the same circle, and it will come round again by Thursday.

You have been holding yourself to a finish line that was never drawn, and no verse anywhere put one at the bottom of a basket. Colossians 3:23 asks for the work to be aimed rather than completed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the wrong ruler out of a person's hand.

Colossians 3:23 does not measure by completion. It measures by direction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a ruler out of somebody's hand.

You are not failing at that basket, and the fullness of it has never once been a report on how you are doing. Colossians 3:23 asks where the work is aimed rather than whether it ran out, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a household task from a verdict on a person.

And it is worth saying plainly. The state of your laundry is not evidence about who you are. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not a secret about your character that visitors can read off a chair.

It is a description of how many people live in your house and how much they wear.

You have been carrying an accusation that was never issued, and the pile has never once been the thing making it. The written word gathers the whatsoever into the same clause as everything else in Colossians 3:23, and the Spirit of God is the one who unhooks a person from a chair in their own bedroom.

Heartily is not the same as cheerfully

One more thing on the verse, because the word heartily gets read wrong constantly and it becomes a burden.

Heartily does not mean happily. It is not asking you to enjoy the folding, and it is definitely not asking you to feel spiritual about a sock.

The old sense is with your heart in it, meaning with the whole of you actually present, rather than with your body doing it while your mind sits somewhere else keeping a tally of everything not yet done.

You are asked for your presence and never for your enthusiasm, and no verse has ever made a mood the price of admission. It is written in Colossians 3:23 that the work is done heartily as to the Lord, and the Spirit of God is the one who receives a pair of hands without inspecting the face above them.

That is not an instruction to feel more. If anything it is permission to feel less, because the tally was doing most of the damage and it was never part of the work.

Colossians 3:23 asks for presence and not for pleasure, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is in a pair of hands rather than in a mood.

You are allowed to do this without enjoying it, and being present in it has never once required a good attitude first. Colossians 3:23 says do it heartily as to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit is the one who receives folded towels from somebody who is quietly fed up.