I Never Say What I Liked About It

You enjoy those evenings more than anybody in that house realizes.

Genuinely. It is your favorite twenty minutes of the week and it has been for years, and there is not one person at that table who could tell you that.

Because you have never said it. Not once, not in any form.

You assume they can tell. You are there every time. You get it out. You stay until the end and you never look at the clock, and surely all of that says something.

It says you turn up. It does not say you like it, and the difference between those two is larger than it looks from where you are sitting.

Here is what a fourteen year old actually observes: a father who arranges an evening every week. That reads as duty just as easily as it reads as pleasure, and duty is the more common explanation, so that is the one that gets used.

I am not going to tell you to be more expressive, which is a thing nobody has ever changed about themselves because an article said so.

I am going to ask for one sentence, at one specific moment, and that is the whole of it.

A word spoken in due season, how good is it

There is a proverb about timing that ends with what is almost an exclamation.

A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it! (Proverbs 15:23, King James Version)

Read the first half, because it is the one for you.

A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth. The joy is in the saying. Something happens in the man who speaks, not only in the person who hears it.

You are a man carrying something nobody has been given, and enjoying an evening quietly has never once been the same thing as anybody knowing. Proverbs 15:23 puts joy in the mouth of the one speaking rather than only in the ear of the one listening, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can hand a man that without asking him to become somebody expressive.

And then the second half, which is about timing rather than about content.

A word spoken in due season. Due season means the right moment, and the proverb treats the timing as the thing that makes it good rather than the wording.

You have been holding something that only works when it is said in the moment, and a true thing kept back has never once been able to do what a true thing said does. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the whole weight on when rather than on how, and it is written in Proverbs 15 that a word in due season is a thing to exclaim about.

And notice that nothing in that verse is about eloquence.

It is a word. Singular. Ordinary. The value is entirely in it being said at the moment when it fits, which is a thing any man can manage once.

You are able to say one ordinary word at the right time, and a plain sentence in due season has never once needed to be well put to land. It is written that a word spoken in due season, how good is it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets an ordinary sentence out at the moment it fits.

Before anybody leaves

Now the timing, because that is where due season lives for you.

Before anybody leaves the table. That is the moment, and it is about eleven seconds wide.

Once one person stands up the evening is over and anything said afterward is a comment on something finished. Said while everybody is still sitting there, the same sentence is part of the evening itself.

You have an eleven second window most weeks, and a sentence said while people are still in their chairs has never once landed the way one said at the door does. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man where a moment actually is, and Proverbs 15:23 makes the season the whole of the value.

And keep it small, which is what makes it possible.

That was good. I like doing this. That bit was funny. Any of those, said in an ordinary voice, is the entire assignment.

You are able to say four words at the right moment, and a small true sentence has never once been too little to change what a household knows. It is written in Proverbs 15 that a man hath joy by the answer of his mouth, and the Holy Spirit is the one at work in something short said at the right time.

And do not build it up. Do not wait for a good week or a particularly good evening.

An ordinary Tuesday is the correct place for this, because the point is not that the evening was special. The point is that you like these, and these are ordinary.

You have been waiting for a season that would justify it, and an ordinary evening has never once been the wrong evening to say a true thing about. The Spirit of God is the one who works in something said about a night with nothing in it, and Scripture puts the goodness in the timing rather than in the occasion.

What they do with it

Now what happens, and it is worth knowing so the silence afterward does not read as failure.

Probably nothing visible. Somebody might say something mildly mocking. Somebody might say nothing at all.

That is not the response. That is the packaging, and a teenager will unwrap it later.

You are able to say something and receive nothing back, and a sentence that got no reaction has never once been a sentence that was not heard. The Holy Spirit is the one who does something in a young person who said nothing, and Proverbs 15:23 puts the joy in the mouth of the one who spoke.

And here is what it actually changes, which is bigger than an evening.

At the moment, from where they sit, these evenings are a thing their father organizes. After one sentence they are a thing their father likes.

That is a completely different fact about a man, and it is the fact they will carry.

You have been read as dutiful for years, and a household has never once been able to see something that was never said out loud. The Spirit of God is the one who changes what a family knows about a man in eleven seconds, and it is written that a word in due season is good.

And say it again next week. Same sentence if you like.

You are able to say the same small thing repeatedly, and a true sentence said twice has never once become less true. It is written in Proverbs 15 that a man hath joy by the answer of his mouth, and the Spirit of God is the one at work in something said again on an ordinary Thursday.