Only Kind When It Gives Out

You are kind to your body, but only after it has gone down.

When your back goes, you rest it. When something gives out, you look after it properly, and you do not argue with yourself about whether you have earned the rest, because the failure has settled that question.

That is the rule you have been living by and nobody has ever written it down: care is available after a collapse and not before.

So the whole of your relationship with your own body consists of long stretches of nothing and occasional periods of proper attention purchased at the price of something breaking. And on an ordinary Thursday, when nothing is wrong, there is no permission available at all.

Let me put the plain thing first. You have not been careless with any of this. You have worked through more than most men would and got up every time, and you have looked after it properly whenever it actually went down. Somebody who did not care would not have looked after it then either.

So this page is not going to tell you to take better care of yourself. That is the vaguest instruction in the English language.

I want to show you an argument Jesus has about what is lawful on an ordinary day.

Permission that requires a failure

Consider what that rule actually requires of you, spelled out, because spelled out it is obviously strange.

To receive care, something has to break. Which means the only route to being looked after runs through a failure, which means, at some level that nobody would ever admit to out loud, a failure is useful.

That is not a thing you have chosen and it is not a thing you want. It is the shape of a rule you inherited, and the shape has consequences whether anybody intended them or not.

You have a rule that requires a failure, and no care has ever once had to be purchased with a collapse. Matthew 12:12 says wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a question about lawfulness arrive on an ordinary Thursday.

And notice what it costs, which is not the care. You get the care eventually. What it costs is that your body only ever gets attention as a problem, and so the only relationship the two of you have is a clinical one, conducted during breakdowns.

You have a relationship conducted entirely during breakdowns, and no attention paid to a failure has ever once been the same thing as care. The written word asks whether it is lawful to do well, which puts doing good on a day when nothing is required, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes an ordinary day a legitimate place for it.

It is lawful to do well

Jesus makes the argument with an animal in a pit, and then He makes it about a man.

And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. (Matthew 12:11-12, King James Version)

Read what He establishes and then what He concludes. He establishes that a man will get a sheep out of a pit on the day nothing is supposed to be done. Everybody agrees. Nobody in the room disputes it.

Then He makes it general. Wherefore it is lawful to do well.

You are inside a general permission rather than an emergency exception, and no doing well has ever once been confined to a crisis. Matthew 12 moves from a specific rescue to a general lawfulness in one sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a general permission usable on a day with no pit in it.

And notice what He does with the comparison. How much then is a man better than a sheep. He is arguing upward. If the animal in trouble qualifies, the man qualifies more, and the whole force of the argument is that people are worth more than the rule they have been keeping.

You are worth more than the rule you have been keeping, and no man has ever once been lower on that comparison than an animal. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an upward argument land on somebody who has kept himself at the bottom of it, and the written word says how much then is a man better than a sheep.

Do it on a Thursday

Now the part I came to say, and the ordinariness of the day is the whole instruction.

Do one kind thing for your body today, on a day when nothing is wrong.

Sit down to eat rather than standing. Take the boots off when you come in instead of at bedtime. Drink some water. Go to bed at a sensible hour. Get the coat that fits.

It has to be on a day when nothing has broken. That is the entire point, and it is why it will feel unlawful.

You have permission on a day with nothing wrong, and no kindness has ever once required a pit to fall into first. The written word says wherefore it is lawful to do well, stated generally, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary Thursday a lawful day for it.

And here is why one act on an ordinary day does what all the post-collapse care never has. The care after a breakdown confirms the rule: something broke, therefore attention. One act on a Thursday breaks the rule, because there is no failure anywhere in it to have paid for it.

You have a way to break the rule rather than keep paying it, and no act on an ordinary day has ever once had a failure behind it. The Spirit of God is the one who makes one lawful Thursday enough, and Matthew 12:12 is the written word underneath it, where the sheep comes out of the pit and the conclusion drawn is general.