They Say Yes And Then Do Not Move

Nobody in your house has ever said no to you.

That is the strange part, and it is the reason this has gone on so long without ever coming to a head. You ask, and somebody says yeah, in a minute. Somebody says sure. Somebody says yeah I'll come.

And then nothing happens. Ever.

Twenty minutes later there is a different show on and the moment has passed, and you have not been refused, so there is nothing to be upset about, and there is also nothing to point at.

So you sit with it, and it curdles slightly, because you cannot tell whether you are being turned down politely or whether you have simply become background noise in your own home.

I want to take that second possibility off the table right now, because I think it is the one that hurts.

The son who said he would go

There is a parable in Matthew that is exactly this, and it is short enough to be missed.

But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. (Matthew 21:28-30, King James Version)

I go, sir. And went not.

That second son is not a villain and the parable does not treat him as one. He is not being rude. He gives the right answer, in the right tone, immediately, and then his body stays where it was.

You are living with something that has been in the record for two thousand years, and you were never the first person to be agreed with and left standing. Matthew 21:30 puts the polite yes and the unmoved body in one sentence without any outrage attached, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a comfort rather than a charge against your children.

And look at how Jesus scores it. He asks which of the two did the will of the father, and the answer is the first one, the one who said no out loud and then went.

That is worth sitting with, because it means the yes was never the thing being measured.

You have been measuring the wrong moment, and it was never the answer at the doorway that decided whether anybody went. The written word puts the whole weight on the going and none of it on the saying, and the Spirit of God is what shifts a father's attention off a word and onto a pair of shoes.

What the yes is actually doing

Now let me name what is happening in your living room, because it is not contempt and it is not a trick.

A yes is the cheapest way to end a small social pressure.

It is not a lie. In the moment it is said, it is even true. Somebody genuinely does intend to come, in a low resolution sort of way, and saying it makes the pressure go away, and once the pressure has gone the intention has nothing left holding it up.

That is not a character flaw in a fifteen year old. That is what a yes does when there is no cost attached to the next ten seconds.

You are not being lied to in your own home, and you were never dealing with anybody who set out to string you along. Matthew 21 declines to condemn the second son and simply reports what he did, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a father from turning an ordinary human thing into a betrayal.

A yes that never stands up is still information, and it is not the same thing as being refused.

Put the shoes between the yes and the going

Here is the practical part, and it is one small change in what happens after you ask.

Stop leaving a gap.

At the moment the yes is given, the whole thing is alive. Ten minutes later it is not. So do not ask and then go and do something else, because in that ten minutes there was never a plan to come, there was only an intention that had nothing to stand on.

So: ask once. Then put your own shoes on where they can see you. Then stand at the door for about ninety seconds and say nothing at all.

You are able to shorten the distance between the yes and the door, and it has never once required you to get an answer twice. The passage puts the whole test at the point of going rather than at the point of speaking, which is exactly why the Spirit of God moves a father toward the doorway instead of toward another conversation.

Ninety seconds is long. It will feel absurd. Do not fill it. Do not remind anybody. Do not say are you coming then, because that turns it back into a question, and the question has already been answered.

You are allowed to stand there and let it be quiet, and it has never once been nagging to be visibly ready in your own hallway. Matthew 21:30 shows a father who asks once and lets the going be the answer, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a man through ninety seconds of nothing happening.