I Am Watering Somebody Else's

You have their key in your pocket.

You have been in three times. You have worked out which ones dry fastest, which is a thing you did not know a fortnight ago, and you have moved one of them out of the afternoon sun without mentioning it to anybody.

And when they come back, everything will look exactly as they left it.

That is the strange part. If you had done nothing, they would come home to a problem. Because you did something, they will come home to a room that looks completely ordinary.

There is no version of this where the work is visible.

So the question underneath is one that a lot of people carry about a lot of things.

What is it worth to do work whose entire success looks like nothing happening.

Bear ye one another's burdens

Paul gives one short instruction in Galatians and then says what fulfilling it amounts to.

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2, King James Version)

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

You are doing the exact thing that sentence describes, and a burden carried while somebody is away has never once been a smaller carrying than one carried in front of them. Galatians 6:2 says bear ye one another's burdens, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a man with somebody else's key in his pocket.

Look at the weight Paul attaches to it. So fulfill the law of Christ.

That is an enormous claim to hang on an ordinary practical act. He is not describing an emotional posture or a spiritual disposition. He is describing picking up something that belonged to somebody else and carrying it for a while.

And there is nothing in it about being present, or being known, or the other person being aware of the carrying.

You were given an instruction with nothing about recognition attached to it, and a burden borne quietly has never once been outside what that verse describes. The Spirit of God is what gives an ordinary errand that weight, and Galatians 6 is where the bearing is written down.

Invisible success

Now the practical half, and it is about a kind of work that most people do and nobody discusses.

There are two sorts of work in the world. The sort where success looks like something, and the sort where success looks like nothing happening.

Building is the first. Maintaining is the second, and almost all maintaining is invisible by construction, because a thing that has been maintained looks exactly like a thing that never needed maintaining.

That is why a person who does the second kind gets thanked so rarely. Not because anybody is ungrateful. Because there is nothing there to point at.

You have been doing work that leaves nothing for anybody to point at, and the absence of a thing to point at has never once been the absence of a thing done. Galatians 6:2 puts the fulfilling in the bearing, and the Spirit of God is the one who names a category most people never name.

You are doing the second kind of work, and nothing about its invisibility has ever once meant it did not happen. What is written in Galatians 6:2 puts the whole weight on the bearing rather than on the witnessing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names a category of work most people never name.

And here is what you have actually done in a fortnight, itemized, because nobody else is going to itemize it.

You have learned which ones dry fastest, which is real knowledge nobody asked you to acquire. You have moved one out of the sun, which was a judgment call made on somebody else's behalf. And you have gone in three times when it would have been easier not to.

You have done three specific things that will never appear on any list, and an unlisted act has never once been an act that failed to count. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps that itemization, and Galatians 6 is the ground under it.

Tell them nothing

So here is the instruction and the second half will take some doing.

Go in once more before they are back. Water what needs it. Move nothing else.

And then tell them nothing about it when they return.

Not the moving of the one out of the sun. Not the three visits. Not which ones dry fastest. Say the plants are fine and leave it there. And here is why. Because the pull to mention it is the pull to convert an invisible thing into a visible one, and the conversion costs more than it returns. It turns a burden borne into a small account rendered, and the borne version is worth more and you already have it.

You are able to leave it unconverted, and a quiet act that stays quiet has never once been diminished by nobody knowing. Galatians 6:2 fulfills the law of Christ in the bearing, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man handing a key back and saying they are fine.