I Am Tired Of Being The Referee

By the time everybody sits down, you have already done four jobs.

You got it out. You worked out who was in. You explained it to the one who has forgotten. You settled the thing about who goes first before it became anything.

And then, for the whole twenty minutes, you are the referee, the timekeeper, the encourager and the person who notices when somebody has had enough.

Nobody asked you to be all five of those. It arrived over years, one job at a time, each one picked up in a moment when somebody had to do it and you were nearest.

And here is where it has got to: you are tired before it starts. Not tired of them. Tired of the position.

So when somebody says can we, there is a flicker in you that you would rather not have, and it is not about your children at all. It is a person looking at a shift and having nothing left.

I am not going to tell you to enjoy it more, or delegate better, or that this is a season. I want to show you that what you are feeling is not a personal failure but a structural finding, and that Scripture treats it as one.

Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone

There is a scene in Exodus where a man watches his son in law work and tells him something nobody else would say to him.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:18, King James Version)

Moses was not doing it badly. That is the first thing to see. Everything he was doing was necessary and he was good at it.

Jethro does not correct his method. He looks at the arrangement and says the arrangement is impossible, and that a man in it wears away.

You are a parent who was never meant to hold it alone, and being worn out by it has never once been a sign that you were doing it badly. Exodus 18:18 names the load as too heavy rather than naming the man as inadequate, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can make that distinction land in somebody who has assumed the opposite for years.

And read the middle of that verse, because it names two casualties.

Both thou, and this people that is with thee. The people wear away too. Not only the one carrying it.

A household with one person holding everything is a household where nobody else gets to hold anything, and there is a cost in that which nobody names.

You have been carrying something that costs the people watching, and a household where one person does it all has never once been a household anybody else could join. The Spirit of God is the one who shows the second half of a cost, and it is written in Exodus 18 that the wearing away runs both ways.

Then look at what Jethro actually proposes, because it is not what a tired person expects.

He does not tell Moses to do less. He tells him to give specific things to specific people, and to keep the hard cases himself. The load gets distributed, and the man keeps the part only he can do.

You are able to keep the part that is actually yours, and handing something over has never once been the same thing as stepping back. It is written that the thing was too heavy for one man, and the Holy Spirit is the one who redistributes rather than reduces.

Hand over one job, not the evening

Now the practical part, and the size of it matters.

One job. Not the evening, not the running of it, not a new arrangement announced to the household.

Pick one of the five things you do and give it to somebody at that table tonight.

You are able to change this with one handover, and giving away a single job has never once required a family meeting to make it real. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something small and unannounced, and Exodus 18 has the load broken into pieces rather than lifted off in one movement.

And pick the right one, because some are easier to give than others.

The explaining is a good one to hand over. So is the timekeeping, which is a job a nine year old will take extremely seriously. So is the getting it out and the putting it away.

Choose something that has a clear edge on it, and give it to somebody by name, out loud, once.

You have people at that table who have never been asked, and a child who was given a job has never once been a child who was being used. The Spirit of God is the one who puts something real into a young person's hands, and it is written in Exodus 18 that able men were placed over the people and it was good for everybody.

Then the hard half, and this is the entire exercise.

Do not take it back. They will do it worse than you. The timekeeping will be approximate, the explaining will be muddled, and something will go slightly wrong that would not have gone wrong if you had done it.

You are able to let something be done badly by somebody else, and a job done worse by another person has never once been a job that failed. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in the gap between how it goes and how it would have gone, and Exodus 18:18 says plainly that one man cannot perform it alone.

What you get back

Now the thing you get, and it is bigger than a reduced workload.

You get to be a person at the table rather than the person running the table.

That is what has actually been missing. Not energy. Position. Nobody has enjoyed an evening from the referee's chair in the history of households.

You are able to sit down as one of the people rather than as the one holding it, and a parent who let go of a job has never once been a parent who abandoned anything. The Spirit of God is the one who moves somebody from running a room to being in it, and Scripture has the load broken up precisely so the man is not worn away.

And there is what it does to them, which is the part you will notice within a week.

A household where four people each hold something is a household where four people are involved. The one who keeps the time is watching the table differently from the one who is only playing.

You have been holding the very things that would have drawn them in, and a job handed to somebody has never once been a burden placed on them. It is written that Jethro's arrangement was good for the people as well as for the man, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does something in a nine year old who was trusted with a clock.

One job. Tonight. Then leave it alone.

You are one handover away from a different chair, and twenty minutes in one room have never once needed one person to carry the whole of them. The Spirit of God is the one at work when a tired person stops holding something, and it is written in Exodus 18 that this thing is too heavy for thee.