Reading Something That Is Not About This

The book on your table has nothing whatsoever to do with what is happening in your life, and you chose it for exactly that reason.

You looked at the shelf and you deliberately passed over three things that would have been relevant, and you took down something with no bearing on any of it. Somebody else's country. A subject you have no stake in. Four hundred pages that do not mention the thing.

And it has been the best hour of your day for about six weeks.

And then a question arrived, and it is the reason this page exists. The question is whether choosing the unrelated book was wisdom or whether it was refusing to look at something, and you have not been able to answer it.

Before anything else, one thing, because a man can arrive at a page about reading from anywhere. If what is happening has got heavier than a hard season, if you have been thinking about not being here at all, put this down and call or text 988 in the United States, or your own local crisis line wherever you are, today. This page cannot see you and is not qualified to. That call is.

Two things are also not coming here.

Nobody is handing you a list, and nobody is saying one word about your phone. You know about the phone. Everybody knows.

What I want to look at is the choosing, because there is an instruction in Scripture about where to point a mind and it is more specific than people expect.

Whatsoever things are lovely

There is an instruction near the end of Philippians that gives a list and then tells the reader what to do with it.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8, King James Version)

Read the last four words. Think on these things.

That is an instruction to aim. Not to feel a certain way, not to process anything, not to work through a situation. Point the mind at a set of things, deliberately, and the pointing is the act being commanded.

And look at what is on the list. True, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report. Notice that not one of them is your circumstance. The list is a set of qualities, and the instruction is to think on things that have those qualities, and nothing in it requires those things to be about the thing you are in.

You are aiming a mind rather than avoiding a subject, and a book with no bearing on your situation has never once been an act of avoidance. Philippians 4:8 commands the pointing of the mind at a set of qualities and never once requires the subject to be your circumstance, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over four hundred pages about somebody else's country.

There is one word on the list worth stopping on, and it is the odd one.

Lovely. That is not a moral category. It is an aesthetic one, and it is sitting on a list with true and just and pure as though it belonged there, which means beauty is being named as a legitimate thing to point a mind at in its own right.

You have permission to point your mind at something lovely, and beauty has never once needed to be useful in order to be on the list. It is written whatsoever things are lovely, the word sits beside true and just as an equal member of the list, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

Avoidance requires a thing being neglected

Here is the mechanism, and it is a test with a clear result.

Avoidance is defined by what it leaves undone.

That is the whole of it. A man avoiding something is failing to attend to a thing that needs attending, and the neglect accumulates. So the test is not how the reading feels. The test is whether anything is being left.

Go through it. Are the conversations being had. Are the calls being made. Is the person who needs to be sat with being sat with. Is the decision that has to be made getting worked on in the hours it should be worked on in.

If the answer to those is yes, then the hour with the unrelated book is not avoidance. There is nothing left undone for it to be avoiding, and a mind pointed somewhere lovely for an hour is doing exactly what Philippians 4:8 tells it to do.

You are attending to what needs attending and reading something else in an hour, and a subject that has no bearing has never once been the same thing as a subject being dodged. Philippians 4:8 names the qualities rather than the topics and commands the aiming, and the Holy Spirit is present with a man who has been auditing the best hour of his day.

And there is a second layer, and this one is where the suspicion actually came from.

Hard seasons produce a belief that the mind is supposed to be on the hard thing at all times. As though attention were loyalty, and pointing it elsewhere for an hour were a small betrayal of the person or the situation.

Nothing in Scripture supports that. The instruction is to think on things with certain qualities, and the qualities named are not qualities that a crisis usually has.

You have a mind that is allowed to be somewhere else for an hour, and attention has never once been the same thing as loyalty. The written word commands the aiming and lists lovely among the true and the just, and His Spirit is the one who calls off a suspicion a hard season invented.

Fifteen minutes at a useful time

So here is the assignment, and it keeps the unrelated book exactly as it is.

Read for fifteen minutes today at a time you would normally be doing something useful.

The same book. The unrelated one. Nobody here is going to suggest something relevant instead, or something that helps with processing what is happening, or a book about the subject in the middle of your life. Keep the one with nothing to do with any of it.

Fifteen minutes, in a slot that had a job in it. Then stop.

You are told where to aim a mind and never told what the subject must be, and an unrelated book has never once been avoidance. The Spirit of God is present on that bench, and it is written whatsoever things are lovely, if there be any virtue, think on these things.

Here is why the same book and a different hour.

The book is not the problem. The audit is. And an audit is not answered by an argument, it is answered by an instance: one deliberate fifteen minutes, in the daylight, in a useful slot, chosen on purpose rather than fallen into.

A thing chosen deliberately in the middle of an ordinary day is very hard to keep calling avoidance.

You are able to choose the unrelated book on purpose in the daylight, and a subject with no bearing has never once needed to justify itself. Philippians 4:8 says think on these things, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a man reading about somebody else's country at three in the afternoon.

And nobody here is prescribing it. This is not a technique for carrying what you are carrying and I will not pretend it is. It is a good thing, permitted in a hard season, that does not have to work.

You have a good thing under no obligation to help, and an hour aimed somewhere lovely has never once had to be about anything. It is written if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things, the aiming is the command and the qualities are the criteria, and the Spirit of God is saying it in a garden today.