Everybody Says It Is Wonderful

Three people have asked you about it and you have said you are loving it, and you are not.

You are on page two hundred and something and you have not enjoyed a chapter since the first week, and the reason you keep going is not the book. It is that everybody around you thinks it is remarkable, and saying otherwise would require an explanation you do not have ready.

So you nod. And then you read nine more pages so that the nod stays honest, and you do that four nights a week, and it has been six weeks.

Two things are not coming here, and you have met them both.

Nobody is handing you a list. Not a title, not an author, not a genre, and no shelf of what a woman ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book, and mostly it adds one more thing to be behind on.

And nobody is saying one word about your phone. You know about the phone. Everybody knows. Being told again by a stranger returns nothing at all.

What I want to look at is the nod, because the nod is doing the reading now.

You are not finishing a book. You are maintaining a position in a room.

Do I seek to please men?

There is a question in Galatians 1 where Paul stops mid-argument and asks something about audiences that is startlingly direct.

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10, King James Version)

Notice that he asks it about himself, out loud, in a letter.

He is not accusing anybody. He is doing an audit, publicly, on the question of whose approval his work is aimed at, and he treats the question as worth asking directly rather than assuming the answer.

And then the second half is uncomfortably clean. If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Not a matter of degree. He puts the two audiences in direct competition and says only one of them can be the one being served.

You are allowed one audience and it is not the room, and six weeks of nodding has never once been the same thing as an honest opinion. Galatians 1:10 has Paul audit his own audience out loud and put the two in direct competition, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over a book you have not enjoyed since the first week.

There is one more thing in that verse worth having.

Paul asks the question of himself. Nobody put it to him. Which means the drift toward an audience is not something a person gets accused of, it is something a person has to notice, because it happens quietly and it feels like courtesy the whole time.

You have a drift that nobody would ever accuse you of, and being polite about a book has never once been a fault in you. It is written for do I now persuade men, or God, Paul raises the question himself rather than answering a charge, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The nod became the reason

Here is the mechanism, and it is worth being exact because it happened by increments.

The first nod was nothing. Somebody asked, the book was going fine at that point, and you said something warm about it. Entirely true.

Then it stopped going fine. And now the earlier nod exists, and putting the book down would be a small retraction of it, and retractions are awkward, so it was easier to keep reading than to revise.

You have taste that may differ from everybody you know, and a celebrated book has never once had a claim on your evenings. His Spirit is present here, which is why the two audiences in Galatians 1:10 are set against each other with nothing softened at all.

Then two more people asked, and you gave them the same answer, and now three nods are on the record and there is a position to defend.

At no point did anybody demand this. Every single nod was given freely, out of ordinary politeness, and the accumulation of them is what is holding a book open that you closed emotionally about five weeks ago.

You are maintaining a record of nods and not a relationship with a book, and three polite answers have never once obliged you to read four hundred pages. Galatians 1:10 names the two audiences and refuses to let both be served, and the Holy Spirit is present with a woman reading to keep an earlier sentence true.

And there is a second layer, and it is the one that makes it hard.

The people who love that book are not wrong. It probably is remarkable. Which means putting it down cannot be blamed on the book, and it has to be owned as a fact about your own taste, and owning a fact about your taste in a room full of people who disagree feels like a verdict on you.

It is not a verdict on you. Two people can read the same fine thing and one of them can be bored.

You have taste that is allowed to differ from a whole room, and not enjoying an admired book has never once been a judgment on the reader. The written word has one man ask out loud whose approval he is working for and answer plainly, and His Spirit is the one who takes a room out of a woman's evening.

Put it down, and start another one

So here is the assignment, and no part of it comes with a caveat.

Put down the book that is not working tonight and start another one before you sleep.

Close it. Not at the chapter break and not after fifty more pages to be fair to it. Where it sits, tonight.

And nobody here is going to suggest you push on because everybody says it gets better. It might get better. That is not the point and it never was.

Then start something else tonight, ten pages of it, before you sleep.

You are allowed one audience and it is not that room, and six weeks of nodding have never once been an opinion. The Holy Spirit is the one at that nightstand with you, and Galatians 1:10 has Paul audit his own audience out loud and refuse to serve both of them.

Here is why tonight and not after the next conversation.

The nods accumulate. Every week that passes adds one, and each one makes the retraction slightly larger, and there is no future point at which this gets easier to do.

And you do not owe the room an announcement. Nobody has to be told. This is not a public correction, it is a private swap, and if somebody asks in three weeks the true answer is that you set it down, which is a complete sentence needing no defense.

You are able to set a book down without telling anybody, and closing something admired has never once required an explanation. Galatians 1:10 says for do I now persuade men, or God, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a woman closing a celebrated book at eleven at night.

The sentence but everyone loves it is going to arrive as you close it. Let it. It is true and it is not about you.

You have one audience tonight and the room is not it, and a book everybody admires has never once had a claim on your evenings. It is written for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ, the two audiences are set in direct competition and only one is served, and the Spirit of God is settling that here.