Four Seconds Of Somebody Else's Family

It was four seconds long and you have thought about it for six hours.

Somebody else's kitchen. Somebody else's children doing something together at a table, in good light, with music you did not choose, and everybody appearing to enjoy it.

And you looked up from that at your own kitchen, and your own evening, and something went slightly gray.

Now I want to be precise about what this article is not, because there are two obvious directions and both of them would waste your time.

This is not a warning about phones. You already know, everybody knows, and one more piece explaining that the thing you saw was curated is not information you lack.

And I am not going to make you feel better by finding fault with them. That is the standard move: they are probably miserable really, that kitchen is a set, she was shouting thirty seconds later. I do not know anything about them and neither do you, and comforting yourself by imagining somebody else's unhappiness is a poor foundation for an evening.

What I want to look at is the measuring itself, because Scripture has something specific to say about it and it is sharper than anything I would have come up with.

They are not wise

There is a line in 2 Corinthians where Paul takes apart the whole practice of comparison, and the verdict at the end of it is blunt.

For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12, King James Version)

Measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

Not: are being hard on themselves. Not: are struggling with insecurity. Are not wise, which is a judgment about the method rather than about the feelings.

He is saying the practice is faulty at the level of arithmetic. You cannot get a true reading this way, not because comparison is unkind to yourself, but because the instrument does not work: you are measuring your own full interior against somebody's four visible seconds, and no honest number can come out of that.

Second Corinthians 10:12 calls the measuring unwise rather than merely painful, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that reach somebody six hours into an evening.

You are using an instrument that cannot produce a true reading, and the result has never once been information. Second Corinthians 10:12 says they measuring themselves by themselves are not wise, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a fault in the method rather than a fault in you.

Nothing to compare against

Here is why the reading is not just unreliable but impossible.

You saw four seconds with no history. You do not know what those children are like at half four, or what happened the day before, or what that family is carrying that they were not filming. You do not know the shape of that woman's week.

And you compared that to your own evening including everything you know about it: the argument at teatime, the thing you said, the tiredness, the six years of context that nobody else on earth has.

Second Corinthians 10:12 calls that comparison unwise on its own terms, and the Holy Spirit is not running your household against anybody's.

There was never anything to compare. There were two objects of completely different kinds, and one of them had almost nothing in it.

You are not behind anybody, and the comparison has never once been between two comparable things. The written word calls the method itself unwise, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes an instrument out of a person's hand rather than adjusting the result.

Put it down, and notice one thing

So here is the assignment, and the second half is what makes it work.

Put the phone down for the evening. And notice one thing your child did today.

Putting it down on its own is a subtraction and subtractions do not hold. An evening with a gap in it fills itself back up with something, usually the same thing.

So put something in the gap, and make it small and specific: what your child actually did today. Not an achievement, not a stage, not anything anybody would put anywhere. Something like: he spent nine minutes trying to get a jar open and would not accept help. She sang the whole way through a bath. He said something about a bird that made no sense.

Notice it, and hold it for about ten seconds. That is all.

Because that is a thing that actually happened in your house, and it is unrepeatable and specific and entirely yours, and it cannot be compared with anything, because there is nothing on earth it corresponds to.

Second Corinthians 10:12 rules out the comparing entirely rather than improving it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in an evening where somebody notices one real thing.

You are able to look at what is actually in front of you, and it has never once needed to compare well with anything. Second Corinthians 10:12 rules the whole practice out, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in ten seconds of a parent noticing something ordinary.