I Loved It And She Did Not

This one was different and that is why it has stayed.

Most years you choose carefully and think about the person and it works or it does not, and either way it is a piece of work that came out well or came out badly.

This one you loved.

You saw it and something in you lit up, and you knew immediately, and for about three weeks you were quietly looking forward to it in a way you have not been in years.

And she opened it and it did nothing. Nothing at all. She was perfectly nice about it and there was no unkindness anywhere, and it landed in the room like a small flat sound.

And what went through you in the four seconds after was not about the object.

It was: so that is what I like, and that is what it is worth.

There is one verse for a heart that has started issuing verdicts about its owner, and it is short.

God is greater than our heart

Here it is.

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. (1 John 3:20, King James Version)

If our heart condemn us. John assumes it happens. He does not treat it as a rare malfunction or a sign that something has gone wrong with somebody.

Hearts condemn. That is written down as an ordinary occurrence, and the verse is built for the moment it occurs.

You have a heart doing what the verse says hearts do, and the Holy Spirit is the one who wrote it as a normal event. 1 John 3:20 treats the condemning as expected rather than as evidence of anything, and normal is the first thing you needed to hear about it.

Now the answer, and notice that it is not an argument.

God is greater than our heart. Not: your heart is wrong about this. Not: here are four reasons the verdict is unsound. Greater. A question of authority rather than of accuracy.

The heart has passed a sentence and the verse says there is a higher court, and the higher court has not agreed to any of it.

You are under a verdict from a court that has been overruled, and it is written that God is greater than our heart rather than that our heart is mistaken. The Spirit of God is the one who established that order, and the order is what makes this bearable when the feeling is still running.

And then the last clause, which is where the specific comfort lives.

And knoweth all things. That is aimed directly at the gap in what you saw.

You saw four seconds. He saw the whole of that afternoon, including what she was carrying, what she was thinking about, what had happened that morning, and what she has never told anybody.

You have been sentenced on the basis of four seconds by a heart that saw four seconds, and the Holy Spirit is the one holding everything you were not shown. Scripture says God knoweth all things, and there is a great deal of it.

Your taste was not on trial

Now let me name the specific move your heart made, because it happened fast and it was not fair.

It converted a reaction to an object into a verdict on you.

That is a leap, and it is a long one. Between what she felt and what you are, there is an enormous amount of missing material, and your heart crossed it in about four seconds without stopping.

You have been sentenced across a gap nobody could have measured, and it is written that He knoweth all things rather than that a heart does. The Spirit of God is the one who refuses that leap, and refusing it is the whole of what is needed here.

And here is what a flat reaction actually contains.

It contains her day. Her taste, which is hers and is not a ranking. Whether she had slept. Whether the thing reminded her of something. Whether she was three minutes from a conversation she was dreading with somebody else in that room.

None of that is available to you, and all of it was in the room.

You have been reading one line of a page you were never handed, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has the rest of that page. The written word gives the knowing of all things to God rather than to the person watching a face, and He has never once handed a woman a verdict built out of one line.

And there is one more thing, and it is the one that matters most for what comes next.

The lighting up was real. Three weeks of quietly looking forward to something is not a small thing in an adult life, and it is rarer than you think, and it does not become foolish retroactively because of four seconds in a room.

You are allowed to have loved it, and it is written that God is greater than our heart, including greater than the part of it that has been calling that foolish. The Spirit of God is the one who protects a real gladness from a later reading of it.

Go on giving what you love

So here is what to do, and it is the opposite of what the four seconds recommended.

Give something you love again. This year. On purpose.

Not to her necessarily and not as a test. To anybody. But choose one thing this year on the basis that you saw it and something in you lit up, and do it deliberately rather than by accident.

You are able to choose for that reason on purpose, and the Holy Spirit is the one who restores a way of choosing that a bad afternoon shut down. 1 John 3:20 puts God above the heart that has been advising against it, and it does shut down without anybody deciding.

And let me say why this matters more than it looks.

If you stop giving things you love, you will keep giving. You will give sensibly, accurately, safely, and you will get it right more often, and something will be gone out of the whole business that you will not be able to name.

A woman who only gives safe things has not become wiser. She has become unreachable, which is the costlier outcome by a long way.

You have something at stake here that is larger than one afternoon, and it is written that God is greater than our heart rather than that the heart should be obeyed when it is loud. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a person reachable, and reachable always costs something.

And when the four seconds come back, say the thing the verse says.

Not: it was fine really. Not: she probably liked it. Neither of those is true and your heart knows it and it will not accept them.

Say instead: my heart is condemning me, and God is greater than my heart, and He knows what I do not. That is the verse and it is enough and it does not require you to pretend about anything.

You are able to answer without lying to yourself, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that answer hold. His word answers a condemning heart with authority rather than with reassurance, and it holds precisely because it concedes the feeling and overrules it anyway.