I Hate Being The One Who Calls It

It is always you who has to say it.

Right, come on. Are we doing this. Anyone want to. Ten minutes and then we will start.

And every time you say it, something in you goes slightly flat, because a man who has to call his own family together is a man who suspects that if he stopped calling, nothing would happen at all.

That suspicion is the thing that is actually wearing you down. Not the organizing. The implication.

And it has quietly changed how the room hears you. You have become the person who announces things, and an announcement is a small demand, and after enough of them a household gets very good at not quite hearing.

Somebody will always be halfway through something. Somebody will say in a minute. Somebody will come and be visibly present and not there.

I want to change the job, not the man, and I want to be clear that nothing here is about trying harder or announcing better.

The job you have been doing was never the job. You have been summoning, and there is another position available in that room and it is much easier and it works.

As for me and my house

There is a famous sentence in Joshua that everybody quotes as a declaration of loyalty, and the grammar of it is worth a slow look.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15, King James Version)

Watch what he does in that verse and, more importantly, what he does not do.

He does not summon anybody. He does not organize a vote, take a register, or wait for a consensus before he says his piece.

He tells them to choose, which leaves them entirely free, and then he states what he is doing regardless of what anybody else decides.

You are a man who can go first without calling anybody, and being the one who starts has never once been the same job as being the one who summons. Joshua 24:15 has a man state his own position and leave everybody else free in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a tired man that there was another way to stand in a room.

And notice the order, because the order is the whole thing.

Choose you this day comes first. His own commitment comes second, and it is not conditional on their answer.

He is not waiting to see who is in before he decides what he is doing. That is the position you have been in for years and it is exhausting because it hands your evening to other people.

You have been waiting on a room to decide what you do, and a man who goes first has never once needed anybody's answer to start. The Spirit of God is the one who unhooks a father from a vote he never had to hold, and it is written in Joshua 24 that the choosing was left with them and the commitment stayed with him.

And there is a mercy in that phrase, me and my house, which people miss.

He speaks for his household without asking them, and nobody in the passage is dragooned. He goes, and the house goes with him, because a man walking in a direction is a far stronger thing than a man calling from a doorway.

You are able to move rather than to call, and a household has never once needed a summons from a man who was already going. It is written that as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts a man out in front instead of in the doorway.

Stop calling and start doing

Here is the instruction, and it is one word different from the thing that has been happening.

Do not call it. Start it.

Get the thing out, sit down at it, and begin, alone, at the time you would have called everybody. Say nothing at all to anybody.

You are able to be the first person at a table without asking for company, and starting alone has never once been the same thing as being alone. The Holy Spirit is the one at work in a room where one man sat down without announcing it, and Joshua 24:15 has a man declare his own course and leave the room free.

Here is why this works when calling does not, and the mechanism is worth knowing.

A call requires a decision from everybody who hears it. A person already doing something requires nothing, and people can wander toward it without ever having agreed to anything.

Nobody has to say yes to a man who is already sitting down. What he is after is two or three people in one room, and the thing on the table is only the excuse for that.

You have been asking for a commitment when all you wanted was company, and an open door has never once needed anybody to walk through it to be worth opening. The Spirit of God is the one who works in a room where nothing was demanded, and it is written in Joshua 24 that the choosing was theirs and the going was his.

And it removes the thing that has been wearing you down, which is not the work.

If you are already doing it and enjoying it, then nobody coming is a fact about a Tuesday. It is not a referendum on whether your family wants to be together, because no question was put.

You are able to run an evening with no verdict attached to it, and a man who was not asking has never once been a man who could be refused. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes the referendum out of an ordinary evening, and Scripture puts a man's own commitment beyond anybody else's answer.

Be genuinely fine on your own

One more thing, and it is the hardest half.

Be actually content sitting there by yourself for the first ten minutes.

Not performing contentment while listening for footsteps. Genuinely occupied, genuinely fine, so that if somebody looks in they see a man doing something rather than a man waiting.

You are able to be alone in a room without it costing you anything, and ten minutes at a table by yourself have never once been a failure of an evening. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with one man as fully as with five, and Joshua 24:15 has a man stating what he does regardless of who joins him.

Because people can tell the difference from the doorway, and it decides whether they come in.

A man visibly waiting is a request, and a request has to be answered. A man visibly occupied is an open room, and an open room can be entered without anybody committing to anything.

You have never once needed an audience for this, and a man enjoying himself alone has never once been a smaller sight than a full table. It is written that he said as for me and my house without waiting for a show of hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one who fills a room a man is already content in.

Start at the same time each week and let people learn where you are.

You are able to become a fixed point rather than a voice, and a household has never once needed to be called to something it already knows the time of. The Spirit of God is the one at work in a habit that nobody was asked to keep, and it is written in Joshua 24 that a man went first and his house went with him.