Nobody Is Watching This Part

Look at what got done and what did not.

The visible parts are finished. The wall people see when they come in. The front of the unit. The part that shows from the hall.

And the parts nobody will ever look at are exactly where the work stopped. Behind the door. The inside of the cupboard. The section that faces the wall.

That pattern is too clean to be an accident, and it is worth naming precisely before anything else, because there are two ways to name it and one of them is wrong.

The wrong way is to say you only work for show. That is not what is happening and it is a cruel reading of an ordinary thing.

Here is what is actually happening. Energy for work comes partly from the prospect of somebody seeing it, and that is true of nearly everybody, and it is one of the most reliable engines a person has. In the invisible parts that engine simply has no fuel, and a person with no fuel does not move, and nothing about that is a moral failure.

You are a woman who works well with an audience, and needing one has never once been vanity in anybody.

As to the Lord, and not unto men

There is an instruction in Colossians about how work is done, and the change it makes is not to the work.

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

As to the Lord, and not unto men.

The verse does not change the task. It does not say work harder or work better or care more. It changes who the work is directed toward, and that is the only alteration it makes.

And notice who it is addressed to. The passage around it is speaking to servants, about work that was mostly unseen and largely unacknowledged, done by people whose efforts nobody was recording.

You have an instruction written for people whose work nobody was watching, and unseen work has never once been outside what that verse was written about. Colossians 3:23 changes the audience rather than the task, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a real audience rather than a consoling idea.

And the word heartily is worth a moment. It means from the whole of a person, wholeheartedly, without the reservation that unseen work usually gets.

The verse assumes the reservation exists. You do not tell somebody to do a thing heartily unless there is a natural pull toward doing it half heartedly, and that pull is exactly what happens in the invisible parts.

You were never being scolded for the pull, and the verse has never once assumed anybody would feel like working on what nobody sees. The Spirit of God is the one who supplies what a person does not have, and Colossians 3:23 names the reservation by writing against it.

The audience is not a trick

So here is the practical part, and it matters that this be honest.

Telling yourself that God is watching can be used as a trick, and used that way it wears off in about a week, because a trick is a substitute for an audience and the mind knows the difference.

That is not what the verse offers. It says as to the Lord, which is a direction rather than a supervision. It is about where the work is handed, not about who is checking it.

You have a place to hand unseen work rather than somebody standing over it, and being seen has never once been what that verse was offering. Colossians 3:23 says as to the Lord, which is about direction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who receives what nobody else will ever look at.

And here is the practical half, which is more ordinary than the spiritual half and just as useful.

The invisible parts need a different engine, and the engine that works is smallness. Not motivation. Not a sense of being watched. A very small amount of work, done once, with no expectation of anything afterward.

Twenty minutes on the inside of a cupboard, with the door shut so that even the possibility of being seen is removed, is a strange and effective thing. It takes the audience out of it completely and finds out what is left.

You are able to find out what is left when nobody could possibly be watching, and twenty minutes behind a shut door has never once been a test you could fail. The Spirit of God is the one who is in a room with the door shut, and the written word sends the work in His direction rather than toward the people who might come by.

And one more, because the shame in this row is misplaced. Wanting to be seen is not a defect.

You were built to work alongside other people, and an engine that runs on company has never once been a lesser engine. Colossians 3:23 redirects the work without one word against the person doing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that redirection possible rather than demanding it.

Twenty minutes with the door shut

Here is the assignment and the shut door is the whole design.

Do twenty minutes of the part nobody will ever see, with the door shut.

The inside of the cupboard. The back of the unit. The section behind the door. Whatever part of that job is genuinely invisible once everything is in place.

You have twenty minutes of unseen work available tonight, and a job nobody will ever look at has never once been a job that did not count. Colossians 3:23 sends the work as to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room with the door shut for the whole twenty minutes.

Shut the door. That is deliberate. Nobody comes in, nobody passes, nobody asks what you are doing. The audience is removed as completely as it can be removed in an ordinary house.

Do the twenty minutes. It will feel oddly flat and that flatness is the honest condition of this stage and not a sign of anything.

And when you finish, do not tell anybody. Not tonight. Telling somebody would reinstall the audience, and this evening is for finding out that the work happens anyway.