I Keep Making The Hour Heavy

You keep loading it.

Not with rules. With meaning. The hour arrives and somewhere in the approach to it you have decided what it is for, and by the time everybody sits down it is carrying a purpose.

It has to be a proper conversation. It has to be a real connection. It has to be, at some level, evidence that this family is all right.

Nobody at that table knows about any of that. But everybody can feel that the hour is heavy, and heavy things are hard to walk toward.

And here is the tell you have probably noticed. Things go well right up until the moment you try to make them count, and then something in the room closes.

That closing is not resistance. It is weight being felt.

I am not going to tell you that meaning is bad, because meaning is the whole reason you are trying at all and a person who did not care would not have this problem.

What I want to do is take one hour off the schedule of significance and let it be an ordinary Tuesday, which is a thing you have not permitted in a very long time.

Be not righteous over much

There is a verse in Ecclesiastes that sits oddly with everything around it and is exactly right for a person like you.

Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? (Ecclesiastes 7:16, King James Version)

That is a strange sentence to find in the Bible and people spend a lot of energy softening it.

It is not saying be less good. It is aimed at a particular kind of person: the one who takes something right and applies more of it than the situation can bear, until the applying does damage.

You are a parent who can let an hour be light, and an evening that meant nothing in particular has never once been an evening that was wasted. Ecclesiastes 7:16 warns about overdoing a good thing rather than about doing a bad one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand somebody that without any suggestion that the caring was wrong.

And read the last part, because it is the strongest word in the verse: why shouldest thou destroy thyself.

Not why should you be tiresome. Destroy. The verse treats over application as genuinely damaging to the person doing it.

You have been paying for something nobody asked for, and a good intention held too tightly has never once been a thing God required of you. The Spirit of God is the one who lifts an unnecessary load off somebody, and it is written in Ecclesiastes 7 that the danger being described is in the excess and not in the thing itself.

So the correction is not to care less about your family. It is to stop asking one Tuesday to prove anything.

You are able to want a good household and let a single hour off the hook, and one evening has never once been the exhibit anybody thought it was. It is written that a person can be righteous over much to their own harm, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the significance off an ordinary week night.

What the weight is made of

Now let me name what is actually being loaded, because vague advice about relaxing will not help.

The hour is carrying a verdict. Somewhere along the way it became evidence about whether this family is close, whether the last few years went well, whether enough has been done.

That is an enormous amount for a Tuesday to hold and no evening could carry it.

You are asking one hour to answer a question about years, and a Tuesday has never once been able to settle anything that size. The Spirit of God is the one who separates a question from an evening, and Ecclesiastes 7:16 is a warning about applying more weight than a thing can bear.

And here is what everybody else in the room experiences, which is the reason to change it.

They cannot see the verdict. They only feel that something is at stake, and that whatever it is, it is being measured, and that they are somehow in the measuring.

Nobody relaxes while being weighed, however kindly.

You have been holding a scale nobody could see, and a household has never once been able to enjoy an evening that was being assessed. It is written in Ecclesiastes 7 that the over doing destroys the one doing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody put a scale down.

And notice how much better the alternative is, and how much lower.

An hour that is about nothing is an hour people can be in. Nothing is at stake, nothing is being proved, and therefore something real can happen in it, which is the thing you actually wanted.

You are able to get the thing you wanted by asking for nothing at all, and an hour with no purpose in it has never once been an empty hour. The Spirit of God is the one who fills a room where nothing was required, and Scripture warns plainly against over applying a good thing.

Let it be about nothing

Here is the instruction and it has two halves.

Let tonight be about nothing. And say nothing at all about what it is for.

No framing on the way in. No it is nice to all be together. No I have been looking forward to this. Every one of those sentences is a small weight added at the door.

You are able to bring an hour into a room without a label on it, and an unannounced evening has never once been an evening nobody understood. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something ordinary and unnamed, and Ecclesiastes 7:16 warns against the extra measure rather than the thing.

And the second half is harder: no summary at the end either.

Do not say that was lovely. Do not say we should do this more often. Both of those are the weight arriving late, and they turn an ordinary hour into an occasion retrospectively, which teaches everybody that the next one is an occasion too.

You have permission to let something finish without being named, and an evening nobody named afterward has never once been an evening that did not count. The Spirit of God is the one who does something with an hour that nobody summed up, and it is written that a person can destroy themselves by too much of a right thing.

Just be there, badly, for twenty minutes, and then go and do something else.

You are able to have an evening that proves nothing, and twenty minutes in one room have never once needed to be about anything to be worth having. It is written in Ecclesiastes 7 that the over doing is the danger, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in an hour that carried nothing at all.