I Called It Off For The First Time

You made the decision in about four seconds and you have been paying for it for six weeks.

Not paying in the way you expected. Nobody has said anything yet. That is the thing: the cost so far has been entirely in advance, in your own head, at various points in the day, in the form of a conversation that has not happened.

In that conversation somebody asks why. And you explain. And the explanation is not quite adequate, so you add to it, and by about the fourth sentence you are justifying yourself to a person who was only mildly curious, and it has become a thing.

You have run that eleven or twelve times now.

Here is what I want to name before anything else. The decision itself was fine. Whatever it was that you took off the plan, you took it off for reasons, and the reasons were probably better than you now remember them being, because six weeks of rehearsed defending has a way of making a man doubt a thing he was clear about at the time.

What is costing you is not the decision. It is that you have not decided what to say about it.

Let your yea be yea

There is an instruction of Jesus about speech that is usually read as being about honesty, and there is something else in it for a man in your position.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Matthew 5:37, King James Version)

Whatsoever is more than these. That is the phrase to sit with. He is not only saying be truthful. He is saying that the material added on top of a plain yes or no is a different substance altogether, and He is not complimentary about it.

And think about what people actually add on top. Not lies, usually. Justification. Reasons. The extra sentence that makes the first one acceptable. The elaboration a person offers when they are not sure their plain answer will be allowed to stand.

That is what He is naming, and He is naming it as something that does not come from a good place.

You are permitted to answer plainly and add nothing to it, and it is written into Matthew 5:37 that whatsoever is more than these comes of evil. The written word treats the elaboration as the problem rather than the answer, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a live permission for a man who has been building explanations for six weeks.

And notice how short the permitted answer is.

You have a two word answer available to you, and Matthew 5:37 does not attach one condition to it. Scripture keeps the whole thing at yea and nay, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man who feels the pull to add a third sentence.

Why the explanation makes it worse

Let me be exact about the mechanism, because this one runs backward and almost everybody gets it wrong.

You believe an explanation will make it acceptable. In fact an explanation is what makes it a subject.

A plain answer closes a topic. Somebody asks whether the thing is happening, you say no, they say oh right, and the conversation moves. Four seconds.

An explanation opens one. Because now there are reasons on the table, and reasons can be discussed. Somebody can disagree with a reason. Somebody can offer a solution to a reason. Somebody can say they would have been happy to help with the reason, and now you are in a conversation about whether the decision was necessary, in front of people, at a gathering, about a thing you settled in October.

You have been reaching for the very thing that turns a decision into a debate, and Scripture puts the addition rather than the answer in the wrong. Matthew 5:37 stops at yea and nay, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man that his defense is the thing creating the trial.

And there is a second thing, and it is about what an explanation broadcasts. A man who explains is signaling that he expects to be challenged, and people respond to that signal. Nine times out of ten, nobody was going to challenge anything until they heard a man defending it.

You were never going to be challenged by most of that room, and the written word does not have a person justifying a plain no anywhere in it. Matthew 5:37 treats the extra as the fault, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when a man says two words and lets the silence after them stand.

Decide the plain sentence

So here is the assignment, and it is short because the answer should be.

Decide the plain sentence you will use if somebody asks, and say it out loud once.

Six words at most. We are not doing that this year. Or: not this time. Or simply: no, not this year.

Nothing after it. No because. No reason, not even a good one, and especially not a true one, because a true reason is the most discussable of all.

You are able to give a six word answer and stop there, and it has never once required you to make anybody understand. Matthew 5:37 keeps the whole of it at yea and nay, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a man in the two seconds after he answers, when the pull to add something is strongest.

And prepare for the silence, because there will be a small one. Two or three seconds where nobody says anything and it feels enormous and you will want to fill it.

Do not fill it. Somebody else will, inside about four seconds, with something entirely unrelated, and the subject will be finished. That silence is not disapproval. It is a conversation turning a corner and it happens dozens of times an hour without anybody noticing.

You are able to let a small silence stand without treating it as a verdict, and Scripture says whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. The written word puts the addition in the wrong column, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a man steady through three seconds of nothing.