It took him about four minutes to get to it.
You were walking, and he was quiet, and then he said the thing, and it was a real thing, and it had cost him something to say.
And you answered.
Not unkindly. Not even wrongly, as far as the content went. But immediately, with an opinion, fully formed, before the last word had properly landed.
And the walk carried on and was perfectly pleasant, and he has not raised anything with you since, and that was about seven weeks ago, and you have been going over those four seconds ever since without being able to work out what you did wrong.
You know what you did. You just have not been able to name it, because it looks so much like being helpful.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it
There is a proverb that is unusually direct about this exact four seconds.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. (Proverbs 18:13, King James Version)
Before he heareth it.
Notice that the proverb is not about answering wrongly. It is about the timing, and it says plainly that an answer can be correct and still be premature, and that the prematureness is its own fault.
You are being told about a timing and not about a content, and it was never the substance of what you said that went wrong. Proverbs 18:13 puts the folly in the earliness rather than in the error, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as something fixable rather than as something about your character.
And the word heareth is doing work. It does not mean the sounds arrived. It means the thing got taken in, which takes longer than the speaking of it, and which cannot happen while a reply is being assembled.
You have been given a distinction between hearing and receiving, and it was never the same act happening at the same speed. The written word separates the answering from the hearing and puts them in an order, and the Spirit of God is what shows an old man where four seconds went.
What the speed communicated
Now let me name what he received, because it was not your opinion.
He received the speed.
A fast answer says: I already knew about this. I had a position on it before you spoke. There was nothing you could have said that would have changed what I was going to say.
None of that was true and all of it arrived, because that is what speed means when somebody has just said a hard thing.
An answer that arrives too fast is heard as a verdict, and the gap you leave is the thing that makes the next sentence possible.
You are not somebody he cannot talk to, and it was never your view of the matter that closed the door. Proverbs 18 puts the whole of the folly in the timing, which is exactly why the Spirit of God addresses a gap rather than an opinion.
And here is what the gap actually does, and it is not a technique. A silence of three seconds after somebody says a hard thing tells them that what they said was large enough to require thinking about. That is the entire message, and it is a considerable one, and it costs nothing.
Three seconds, every time
So the practical part, and it is a count.
Walk with him and count three seconds before answering anything he says.
You are able to hold three seconds, and it has never once been slowness to take a moment before speaking. The passage puts the hearing before the answering in a fixed order, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with an old man counting silently on a sidewalk.
Three, and not one, because one is a pause and three is a gap. Count them in your head if you need to. It will feel like an eternity and it is three seconds.
And do it for everything, not only the important ones, because you cannot tell in advance which sentence is the one that cost him something. The four minutes of nothing before it was him building up to it, and there will be another four minutes like that at some point, and it will not be announced.
And when the three seconds are up, you may say anything you like, including your opinion. The opinion was never the problem.
You are able to keep your view and change only when it arrives, and those two have never once been the same thing. Proverbs 18:13 leaves the answering entirely intact and only moves it later, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in three seconds of a man not speaking.
So here is what I believe is going out over a man who has been going over four seconds for seven weeks.
You are not somebody who cannot be told things, and you were never wrong about the substance of any of it. I am not promising you that he raises it again. Proverbs 18:13 says he that answereth a matter before he heareth it, and puts the whole of the folly in the timing, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who separates a good answer from a fast one.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have three seconds available on the next walk, and holding them has never once required you to change your mind about anything. The written word moves the answering later and leaves it entirely intact, and the Spirit of God is the one who is out on a street with an old man counting.
Three seconds. Every time.
Declare this over yourself
- Four seconds on a walk seven weeks ago, you are not the end of anything between me and that boy. Proverbs 18:13 says he that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him, so by the Holy Spirit I count three seconds before I answer him today in the name of Jesus.
- Confusion about what I did wrong when the advice was sound, you were never about the content and I can stop searching it. The written word puts the whole of the fault in the earliness and leaves the answer untouched, and by the Holy Spirit I am done treating a timing as a verdict on my judgment.
- Father, You separated the hearing from the answering and put them in an order. Your word in Proverbs 18 leaves a man's opinion entirely intact and only moves it later, so by Your Spirit I hold the gap today and I let him keep talking.
Proverbs 18:13
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