I Said Yes To Something I Cannot Pay For

You said yes in September and you knew while you were saying it.

Not fully. There was a version of the future in your head where it worked, and it was not a lie exactly, it was more like a hope wearing the clothes of a plan. And the person in front of you was pleased, and the moment moved on, and it was done.

Since then you have been waiting for something.

That is the part I want to name, because I think it has never been said out loud. You have been quietly waiting for the situation to resolve itself. For somebody to change the arrangement. For it to get called off for an unrelated reason. For some unspecified thing to arrive between now and then and make the problem not be a problem.

And nothing has arrived, and there are three weeks left, and the waiting has turned into a low background dread that follows you from room to room.

Let me say plainly what I am not going to do. I am not going to tell you what is within reach for your household, and I will make you no promise at all about provision. Nobody at this distance knows your household, and anybody who ties what arrives to how much you believe has told you something that is not in the Bible and will do you harm.

What I want to talk about is the waiting, because the waiting is costing more than the money.

The troubles of my heart are enlarged

There is a line in the psalms that describes exactly the shape of what has happened to you since September.

The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. (Psalm 25:17, King James Version)

Enlarged. Not new. Not more numerous. The same trouble, occupying more room than it did.

That is precise, and it is rare to find something that precise about worry anywhere. The thing you agreed to has not changed size since September. The amount is the amount. What has changed is how much of you it is taking up, and it has been enlarging quietly in the dark for eleven weeks.

And the second half is a request, not a resolution: bring thou me out. He does not say the trouble has gone. He asks to be brought out of the distress while the trouble stands.

You are permitted to say that a thing has grown inside you without the thing itself having grown, and Psalm 25:17 has a man name exactly that and ask to be brought out. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a live prayer for a woman three weeks out rather than a line about somebody else's ancient trouble.

And notice that nowhere in it is he told to be less troubled first.

You have never once been asked to shrink a trouble before bringing it, and Scripture keeps the request and the enlargement in the same verse. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the room where a thing has been growing since September, and the written word never tidies the trouble before it lets the man speak.

What waiting actually does

Now let me be honest about the waiting, because it looks like patience and it is not.

Hoping a situation resolves itself is not faith and it is not trust. It is the postponement of a conversation. Faith is not the belief that the difficult sentence will become unnecessary; it never becomes unnecessary, it only becomes later and harder.

And the arithmetic of lateness is brutal in a particular way. A sentence said in September would have been an adjustment. The same sentence in the last week is a withdrawal, and people receive a withdrawal quite differently, because by then they have arranged things around it.

You were never being faithful by waiting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody stops waiting and starts speaking. The written word has a man ask to be brought out rather than hope quietly to be forgotten about, and Psalm 25:17 puts a direct request in the mouth of a man in real distress.

There is a second thing the waiting is doing and it is worse. Every day you do not say it, the sentence gets heavier, because now there is the original thing and there is also the fact that you have known since September and said nothing. The second one is the part that will keep you awake in January.

You have a sentence available that gets heavier every day it waits, and Scripture never once rewards a person for holding a trouble longer. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the weight of a delayed thing off a woman the moment she says it, and Psalm 25:17 asks for exactly that: to be brought out.

The real sentence, this week

So here is what I am asking, and it is uncomfortable and it is short.

Say the real sentence to the one person it concerns, before anything else is arranged.

Not to your household. Not to a friend for a rehearsal. To the person the agreement was made with.

Something like: I said yes in September and I cannot do it, and I am sorry I have taken this long to say so. Or: I need to take that back and I would rather tell you now than in the last week.

You are able to go back on a yes without it being a failure of character, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a woman while she says a sentence she has been rehearsing and postponing for eleven weeks. It is written into Psalm 25:17 that a man in distress simply asks to be brought out of it, and the written word puts no condition on the asking.

I want to be exact about the apology in it, because there is a trap here. Apologize for the lateness. Do not apologize for the money. Those are two different sentences and the second one hands the other person a picture of you that is not true and that you will have to live inside for years.

You were short. That is not a moral event. The delay was a decision, and that one is worth a plain sorry.

You are apologizing for the timing and not for the amount, and what is actually there has never once been a thing to be sorry for. The Spirit of God is the one who carries a woman through the two minutes after she says it, and Psalm 25:17 is a request made without one word of self accusation in it.