He Said Yes And I Panicked

He said yes and you did not know what to do.

That is the honest account of it and it is the one thing you have not told anybody, because it makes no sense on paper. You had been asking for a year. You got a yes. And the first thing that happened in you was something close to panic.

You spent about six minutes getting things ready that did not need getting ready. You made a remark about it being nice. You almost said something about how long it had been, and stopped, and the stopping was audible.

And then the twenty minutes happened and they were fine, and you have been slightly ashamed of yourself ever since.

Here is what was going on, and it is not what you think.

A man who has been asking into silence for a year has developed a whole set of muscles for not being answered. None of those muscles are any use when somebody says yes, and the yes arrives and there is nothing to do with any of them.

That is not ingratitude and it is not a failure of nerve. It is what happens to anybody who gets a thing they had stopped expecting.

Peter continued knocking, and they were astonished

There is a scene in Acts that is genuinely funny and is about exactly this.

But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished. (Acts 12:16, King James Version)

The church has been praying for Peter, who is in prison. They have been at it all night.

An angel gets him out. He comes to the door. A girl answers, recognizes his voice, and is so pleased that she runs off and leaves him standing outside, and the people praying tell her she is out of her mind.

And Peter stands there knocking while a room full of people who asked for exactly this argue about whether it could be true.

You are a father holding something you have wanted for a year, and an evening you were afraid to spend has never once been an evening that needed protecting. Acts 12:16 has people receive the answer to their own prayer and be completely unable to handle it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can put that in front of a man as comfort rather than as a rebuke.

Notice that nobody in that room is faithless. They were praying. They wanted this.

The problem is that a long stretch of asking builds a shape in a person, and an answer does not fit the shape, and there is a period of standing about while everybody catches up.

You have been shaped by a year of asking, and a man who fumbled a yes has never once been a man who did not want it. The Spirit of God is the one who explains a strange reaction without any charge attached to it, and it is written in Acts 12 that a whole church stood inside a house while the answer knocked outside it.

And notice how it resolves. Not with an explanation. They open the door.

Nobody in that passage works out their theology of answered prayer first. Somebody eventually opens a door and Peter comes in and there he is.

You are able to open a door before you have understood anything, and a man who acted while confused has never once acted wrongly by doing so. It is written that Peter continued knocking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a door opened while everybody is still astonished.

Spend it, do not protect it

Now the practical half, and it is the whole of the instruction.

If you get a yes tonight, spend it immediately and ordinarily.

Do not prepare. Do not improve anything. Do not clear a better space or find a better version. Take the twenty minutes as they are, right then, in whatever room you are standing in.

You are able to use something the moment it arrives, and a yes spent immediately has never once been a yes that was wasted. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in something taken as it came, and Acts 12:16 has a door opened rather than a situation managed.

Because the preparing is not preparing. It is protecting, and protecting is what you do with something you are afraid of losing.

Six minutes of getting things ready is six minutes of a yes not being spent, and it also tells the person who said yes that this is an event, and events are heavier to attend than evenings.

You have something that gets better the more ordinarily it is used, and a yes treated as an ordinary Tuesday has never once been a yes taken for granted. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the fragility out of something a man has been carrying carefully, and it is written that they opened the door and there he was.

And say nothing about it. Nothing at all.

No it is good to do this. No it has been a while. No thanks for sitting down. Every one of those turns a yes into a favor, and nobody enjoys having done somebody a favor.

You are able to receive something without acknowledging it, and an unremarked evening has never once been an ungracious one. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a room where nothing was named, and Acts 12 has Peter come in and the story move straight on.

What to do with the panic

One more thing, because it will arrive again and you should know what it is.

When the yes comes, something will go through you. Recognize it, name it privately as what it is, and do not act on it.

It is not doubt and it is not fear of the evening. It is the muscles for not being answered firing when there is nothing for them to do.

You are able to feel something odd and keep moving, and a strange reaction to a good thing has never once been a warning about it. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the ten seconds after somebody says yes, and Acts 12:16 has a whole room feel exactly this and still end up with Peter inside the house.

And the antidote is entirely physical: sit down.

Do not stand there. Do not go and get anything. Sit down at whatever surface is nearest and start, and the sitting down will do more for the panic than any amount of thinking.

You have a way through this that takes four seconds, and a man who sat down right away has never once needed to understand himself first. It is written that they opened the door and saw him, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves a man from a doorway to a chair.

Then let it be twenty ordinary minutes and nothing more.

You are able to have the thing you asked for and not mark it, and an evening that was allowed to be ordinary has never once been a smaller answer than one that was celebrated. It is written in Acts 12 that Peter came in and the house went on, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work in an evening nobody made anything of.