I Do Not Know What Else It Would Be For

You did the hard part in March and nobody warned you about what came next.

You took the number out. You stopped weighing, you stopped measuring, you stopped letting an instrument grade your week, and it was the right thing and it worked and you do not want it back.

And you have not been out since about April.

Because it turns out that the number, whatever else it was doing, was answering the question of what this is for. It was a bad answer and it was doing real damage and it was also, technically, an answer.

Take it out and there is a space where the answer used to be, and you have been standing in front of that space for five months.

Every reason you have tried has evaporated by about Thursday. Health, which is vague and sits in the future. Feeling better, which is not reliable enough to plan around. Setting an example, which is a duty rather than a reason and produces about nine days.

And you are slightly embarrassed about the whole thing, because the removal was supposed to be the solution and it has left you with less than you had.

So this article is only about one thing, and it is the thing nobody wrote for you in March.

What goes in the space.

What doth the LORD require of thee

There is a verse in Micah that answers a much larger version of your question, and the shape of the answer is what to notice.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8, King James Version)

He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

The whole passage before it is a man asking what he should bring, and the offers get larger and larger and more desperate.

You have a verse where the answer comes back smaller than the question, and Micah 6:8 has never once required a reason to be large in order to be sufficient. The answer is three plain things, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person something small enough to actually carry.

You are able to see that the smallness is the mercy in it. He offers thousands of rams and rivers of oil, and the answer that comes back could be written on the back of a hand.

And look at the third of them, because it is the one that fits here. Walk humbly with thy God. Not achieve, not accomplish, not produce. Walk. With somebody. Ordinarily.

That is a verb that could describe an evening rather than a life project, and it is put beside justice and mercy without any apology for being smaller than they are.

You are able to have a reason that fits in one sentence, and Micah 6:8 has never once treated a short answer as a thin one. The Spirit of God is the one who walks with somebody rather than requiring something from them, and the verse answers an enormous question in about eleven words.

The reason has to name a person

Here is the specific thing that has been going wrong with your five attempted reasons, and once you see it the fix is obvious.

Every reason you tried was about you.

You have been looking for a motive in the wrong direction entirely, and Micah 6:8 has never once left the walking as a solitary activity. It is written to walk humbly with thy God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts another person into a reason and makes it hold.

Health is about you. Feeling better is about you. Even setting an example is about you being seen.

And reasons about oneself evaporate by Thursday, for everybody, in every area. Not out of selfishness, but because a reason that only involves one person can be renegotiated by that person, privately, at half past six, with nobody else present.

You have people in this house whose names can go into a sentence, and a reason with somebody else inside it has never once been available to be renegotiated alone. Micah 6:8 keeps the walking with somebody in the same line as the justice and the mercy, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts another person into a motive and makes it hold.

So the reason goes: I want ten minutes with my husband where neither of us is looking at anything. Or: I want my daughter to have a mother who goes outside. Or: I want ten minutes a day where somebody in this house has my whole attention.

One sentence. It names a person. It is not about a result, and there is nothing in it that a bad week can disprove.

You are able to build this on somebody else rather than on yourself, and a reason that names a person has never once been available to be talked out of at half past six. Micah 6:8 puts the walking with somebody in the same line as the justice and the mercy, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a household to something small.

Say the sentence out loud first

So here is the assignment, and the first half of it takes four seconds.

Say your one sentence out loud before you go, and then go for ten minutes with the person it names.

You are able to say a reason out loud and have it hold you, and a spoken sentence has never once been the same as a thought about one. It is written to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a woman says a true short sentence in her own hallway.

Out loud, to yourself, in the hall, before the coat goes on. Not to the person it names, which would make it an announcement and put weight on them.

I am going out for ten minutes with him because I want ten minutes where neither of us is looking at anything.

Then go, and do exactly that, and do not check whether it is working.

The saying it matters because a reason held silently is a reason that can drift, and a reason said out loud at the door has been fixed for that evening. It is the same principle as the number, in reverse: an external act settles something that internal argument cannot.

You have a reason that a bad week cannot disprove, and building on something unfalsifiable has never once been the same as building on nothing. The Spirit of God is the one who is out on a lane with two people, and Micah 6:8 gives the whole answer in three short clauses.

Six weeks of that, and then look at whether the space is still empty.