You said it again this afternoon. Sort of.
What actually came out was something like: we could go out for a bit, if anyone wanted, I mean it does not matter, it is probably too late anyway.
And then you went to start dinner, and nobody answered, and you told yourself they did not want to go.
Here is what I want to say first, before anything else, because I think you have been carrying this one on your own: they did not say no. Nobody said no. Nobody in that room was ever actually asked.
The sentence went out and came back before it landed. You put the offer down and picked it straight up again in the same breath, and there was never a moment when anybody had a real question in front of them.
And you have done that so many times now that you genuinely believe your family does not want to go outside.
The man who could not get the sentence out
There is a man in Exodus who does the same thing, and God does not scold him for it.
And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. (Exodus 4:10, King James Version)
Slow of speech. A slow tongue.
Read what he is actually doing there. He has been given something to say, and he is explaining in advance why the saying of it is going to go badly. Not refusing. Explaining. Getting the excuse in before the sentence has even been attempted.
You are not the only one who has stood in a room rehearsing a reason not to say something. Exodus 4:10 has a man's own mouth written into it as the thing he cannot get past, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put that objection into the book instead of leaving it out.
Because it did get left in. Somebody could have cut that verse. The man God chose to speak to a nation opens his mouth, and the first thing on the record is that he cannot do the talking part.
You are allowed to be somebody who finds the asking hard, and you were never disqualified by a difficulty Scripture wrote down on purpose. The passage keeps the objection in rather than tidying it away, and the Spirit of God is the one who left it there for a woman reading this on a Tuesday afternoon.
Why the sentence comes back
I want to name the mechanism, because naming it is most of the work.
The offer gets pulled back in order to protect the one who made it. If nobody was properly asked, then nobody properly refused, and a groan in answer to half a sentence does not have to mean anything. It is a way of keeping a family's no from ever becoming official.
And it works. That is the hard part. It does work, and the cost of it working is that the door never opens.
I am not going to call that cowardice, because it is not. It is a person who has been turned down enough times to start softening the landing in advance, and that is an ordinary human thing most people in most houses are doing about something.
You have not been refused as many times as you think, because most of those offers were withdrawn before anybody could answer them. The word records a man doing this same thing in Exodus 4 and does not shame him for it, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps that from turning into an accusation as you read it.
What God actually does about it
Now watch what happens next in that chapter, because it is not what somebody braced for correction expects.
And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. (Exodus 4:11-12, King James Version)
God does not fix the speech. He does not hand Moses fluency, and He does not tell him he is wrong about his own tongue. He says: go, and I will be with your mouth.
That is a very small answer to a very large fear. It does not remove the difficulty. It puts somebody into the difficulty alongside him.
You are not being asked to become a person who asks well, and you were never going to be handed a fluent version of yourself first. Exodus 4:12 offers presence with a mouth rather than a repair of it, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that a relief instead of a disappointment.
And the clumsiness is allowed. That is the whole point of it. The sentence is allowed to come out badly, and a clumsy invitation is still an invitation.
Say it once, all the way to the end
So here is the method, and it is one sentence long. Say it once. All the way to the end. Then stop talking.
Do not add the escape clause. Do not add if anyone wants, or it is probably too late, or it does not matter. Those are the take-back, and they have done more damage in your house than any groan ever did.
We are going out for twenty minutes. Anyone who wants to come, come.
You are able to stop a sentence at the end of it, and that full stop has never once been unkind to anybody in your house. The passage puts God with a mouth in the middle of the difficulty rather than after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies somebody through the two seconds they want to fill.
Then be quiet. Let it sit in the room. Let somebody actually answer it, and let the answer be whatever it turns out to be.
You have the whole sentence in you already, and it has never once needed to be well made to count as having asked. Exodus 4:12 puts God with a mouth that is not eloquent, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds a room quiet for the two seconds after an offer lands.
And if they say no, they said no. That is a real answer to a real question, and it is survivable. It is the not-asking that has been eating you, and not the refusing.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman who has not let one of her own sentences finish in two years.
You are not living with a family who refuses you, and you were never told no as often as you have been counting. I am not promising you that they come. Exodus 4:10 records a man's own mouth as his objection and God answering it with presence rather than fluency, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my saying so who takes an old tally down.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have permission to ask badly, and a clumsy invitation has never once counted for less than a well made one. The written word puts God with a slow tongue instead of replacing it, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in the room while the sentence lands.
Say it once. Let it stand.
Declare this over yourself
- Half sentence I have been hiding behind, you are not protecting anybody. Exodus 4:10 has a man telling God his mouth is slow and being sent with it, so by the Holy Spirit I say the whole thing out loud and let my family be actually asked in the name of Jesus.
- Fear of one more refusal, you were never worth four offers that nobody in this house ever heard. The written word answers a slow tongue with presence and not with silence, and by the Holy Spirit I am done taking my own sentences back.
- Father, You answered a slow tongue with Your own presence and not with a better mouth. Your word in Exodus 4 puts You alongside the speaking instead of replacing it, so by Your Spirit I ask my family plainly today and I let the answer be theirs.
Exodus 4:10
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