It Feels Like Imposing

The message is written. It has been written since Tuesday.

It says: hey, I go to the thing on a Thursday, would you ever want to come along? No pressure at all, I know you are so busy, and honestly do not worry if not.

Eleven words of ask and twenty three words of exit.

She counted them last night, which is how she knows, and she has done a version of this eleven times this year with eleven different people and sent about three of them and the three she sent had the same twenty three words on the end.

Everybody said no, warmly. She is not surprised. She wrote them a door and held it open and stood beside it pointing at it.

Here is what is actually running.

She has a picture of every person she might ask, and in that picture they are busy. Not vaguely busy. Specifically, visibly, legitimately busy, with jobs and children and a thing on Thursdays, and her request is a small stone dropped into a full glass.

So the escape routes are not politeness. They are pre emptive apology for the stone.

And underneath that, one layer down and only visible at about eleven at night, is the actual sentence: I am not worth rearranging a Thursday for.

She has never written that one down. She looked at it once in June and put it away.

Separate me Barnabas and Saul, and there is nothing on the end of it

Sit down with the phone face down, because there is a sentence in Acts where the asking is done by the Holy Spirit Himself, and the thing to notice is what is not in it.

They are in Antioch. There are prophets and teachers there, named, and they are fasting and ministering to the Lord.

As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.Acts 13:2

Separate me Barnabas and Saul.

Two names, said out loud, in a room, in front of everybody. No preamble. No if they are free. No I know they are both very busy and honestly do not worry if not.

The request is specific, it is public, it names people, and it has no exit clause anywhere in it.

Hear this with the message still unsent. You are not imposing, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture has the Holy Spirit Himself naming two men out loud without one softening word, and He is the one who has been in the room when you have wanted to ask and drafted an escape instead.

Now let me take the escape routes apart, because they are doing the opposite of what you built them for.

You put them in so the person can say no without awkwardness. That is kind and it is genuinely why you did it.

But read what a person actually receives. Eleven words of invitation and twenty three words explaining why it is fine to decline. The ratio is the message, and the message that arrives is: this is not important, and I do not expect you, and I have already assumed you will not.

Nobody rearranges a Thursday for that. Not because they do not like you. Because you told them, at some length, that there was nothing to rearrange for.

Hear this too, and let it get to the sentence from June. You are worth rearranging a Thursday for, and Scripture is what says so rather than my encouragement. What is written has the Spirit of God naming ordinary people out loud for a work and never once apologizing for the cost of it, and the Holy Spirit has never treated a call on somebody's time as an imposition to be softened in advance.

And this matters, so it is worth saying: nothing here is a technique for getting a yes. People will still say no, and some of them really are busy on Thursdays, and a no is not a failure and it is not a verdict.

The action is the asking. That is what the written word puts in your hands, and the Holy Spirit carries the rest of it. The clean version is what you have never actually tried.