I Kept It Fair And It Ended Badly Anyway

You did everything right and it still ended with somebody in tears.

That is the part that has no answer in it, and it is why this one keeps coming back to you.

You were scrupulous. You applied the same rule to everybody. You did not favor the youngest, you did not go easy on the one who was struggling, and when the moment came where a decision had to go against a small person, you made it correctly and you made it kindly.

And it ended the way it always ends.

So there is a question underneath your evenings now, and it is not the one anybody would guess. It is not what did I do wrong. You know you did nothing wrong.

It is: what else is there.

Because if being fair is the whole job, and you did the whole job, and it still went like that, then there is nothing left to try and no reason to sit down again.

I have an answer, and it is not that you should be less fair. Keep every bit of the fairness. It is that you have been holding one thing where God asked for two.

Do justly, and love mercy

There is a verse in Micah that reduces the whole requirement to three things, and the first two are the ones that matter here.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8, King James Version)

Two separate items, joined by an and, both required at once.

Do justly. Love mercy. Not one or the other, and not a balance between them where more of one means less of the other.

You are a man holding one of the two things God asked for, and being exactly fair has never once been the whole of what a table needs. Micah 6:8 puts justice and mercy side by side as two requirements rather than as one adjustable setting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can show a man a missing hand without calling the hand he has wrong.

And look at the verbs, because they are different on purpose.

Do justly. Justice is something a man does. It goes into actions, rules, decisions, the call that has to be made when two children want the same thing.

Love mercy. Mercy is something a man loves, which means it lives in what he says and how he looks at somebody, and it does not overturn a single decision he made.

You have been given two hands for this, and holding a fair line has never once prevented a man from saying a merciful thing while he holds it. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man that these two never competed, and it is written in Micah 6 that both are required of the same person at the same time.

Which is why the evenings end the way they do.

A completely fair table with no mercy spoken at it is a courtroom. Everything is correct and nothing is warm, and a small person who loses correctly in a courtroom has still lost in a courtroom. What was wanted was four people in one room, and the thing on the table was only ever the excuse for that.

You are able to keep every ruling and change the room entirely, and one merciful sentence has never once softened a fair decision. It is written that the requirement is to do justly and to love mercy together, and the Holy Spirit is the one who hands a man the second half of an instruction he has been keeping half of for years.

Mercy is a sentence, not a concession

Now let me be exact, because a man who has spent years being fair will hear mercy as a threat to it.

Mercy at a table does not mean letting somebody off. It does not mean bending a rule, ignoring a mistake, or arranging for the youngest to win.

Mercy is a sentence said out loud about a person while the fair thing stands.

You are able to say something true about somebody in the same minute you rule against them, and mercy has never once required a man to give anything away. The Spirit of God is the one who separates a kindness from a concession, and Micah 6:8 asks for both without either one weakening the other.

Here is what it sounds like, and it is short.

That was a good move and it did not work. Or: I could see you thinking about that one for a while. Or, plainest of all: that was hard luck and I am sorry it went that way.

None of those reverses anything. All of them tell a child that the man across the table saw them and not just their move.

You have been seen as fair and not yet as warm, and a household has never once been able to feel something a man only did in his head. It is written in Micah 6 that the mercy is to be loved, which is a thing that shows, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a true sentence out of a man's mouth.

And there is the timing, which is the whole of it.

Say the merciful thing in the same minute as the fair thing. Not later. Not at the end. Right there, while the ruling is still warm.

You are able to put both hands on the table at once, and a fair call with a kind sentence beside it has never once been a call that failed. The Spirit of God is the one at work in the sixty seconds after a decision, and Scripture joins the doing and the loving with an and.

What this actually costs you

Now, honestly: this will feel like weakness the first three times.

A man who has held a line for years feels the merciful sentence as a crack in it. It is not, and here is how you can tell.

If the ruling stands, it was mercy. If the ruling moves, it was a concession. That is the whole test and it takes two seconds to run.

You have a way to tell the two apart, and a sentence that changed nothing has never once been a sentence that cost a man his authority. It is written that the requirement is to do justly and love mercy, which is one man doing both, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a father the first three times he says something warm and does not move.

And there is what it does to the child, which is the reason to bother.

A child who loses a fair game in silence learns that the table is fair. A child who loses a fair game and hears one true kind sentence learns that the table is fair and that they are known.

Only one of those makes a person want to sit down again.

You are able to give both at once, and a household that is fair and warm has never once been a household that had to choose. The Spirit of God is the one who does something with a sentence a man nearly did not say, and it is written in Micah 6 that both are required of him.

Keep the fairness. All of it. Add the other hand.

You have not been doing this wrong, and a man who kept the rules exactly has never once been a man with nothing left to try. It is written that He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a father the second half tonight.