I Bluffed And He Caught Me

You did not plan it.

He asked something and you did not know, and there was half a second where the honest answer was available, and instead a confident sentence came out of your mouth.

And it was wrong. And he knew it was wrong. And he said so, not unkindly, in the way children do when they are simply reporting a fact.

And you said something about it having been a long time, and the evening carried on, and neither of you mentioned it again.

But something changed that night. Since then you have been careful. You do not offer anything unless you are sure. And careful, in a room with a child and a page, is almost indistinguishable from absent.

And nothing was made of it at the time. That is worth saying. He did not gloat and he did not go quiet. He corrected it and moved on to the next question, the way a person does when a thing is simply a fact, and the whole exchange would have been over in eight seconds if you had let it be over.

Lying lips are abomination

There is a line in Proverbs that is stronger than the situation requires, and the strength of it is what makes it useful.

Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight. (Proverbs 12:22, King James Version)

Now, a wrong guess at a homework question is not what that verse is aimed at, and I am not going to pretend it is. Nobody is an abomination for misremembering how something works.

Look instead at the second half, which is the half that usually gets dropped. They that deal truly are his delight.

Deal truly. That is a phrase about conduct rather than accuracy. It is about how a person handles what they have, not about whether what they have is correct.

You have been offered something for dealing truly rather than for being right, and no verse anywhere has ever once made accuracy the condition of that delight. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to somebody who got a sum wrong in front of a nine year old, and Proverbs 12:22 names the dealing rather than the knowing.

And that distinction is the whole of your problem, because you have been treating the wrong answer as the failure.

It was not. The wrong answer was a wrong answer. The thing that cost you something was the confident delivery, and confidence is a choice about dealing rather than a fact about knowing.

You were never being judged on what you remembered, and nobody has ever once been required to carry a schoolbook in their head at forty. The Spirit of God is the one who moves the whole question off accuracy, and the written word puts the delight on the dealing.

What carefulness costs

Here is the part that matters more than the original evening, because the original evening is over and this is still running.

A careful parent contributes less. That is arithmetic rather than character. If the rule is say nothing unless it is certain, then most of what could have been said does not get said.

So the evenings have become quieter, and he has stopped asking you things, and you have read that as him managing without you, which is the reading that hurts most and is also probably wrong.

You have been reading a silence you created as a preference he formed, and a quiet child has never once been an independent one by definition. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a person what their own carefulness has been buying, and Proverbs 12:22 puts the delight on the conduct rather than on the correctness.

And there is a second cost, and it is the one that reaches him.

He has now seen an adult get something wrong and then cover it. That is the whole lesson of that evening, and it is not the lesson you would have chosen.

What he has not yet seen is an adult get something wrong and say so. Which is available tonight, for free, and takes four words.

You have the missing half of that lesson in your own mouth, and it has never once required you to go back and undo the first half. The Spirit of God is the one who supplies the second demonstration, and the written word names dealing truly as its own category.

You were never disqualified by one confident sentence, and no father anywhere has ever once been finished by a wrong answer about fractions. The Holy Spirit is the one who ends a carefulness that has been running since October, and Proverbs 12:22 puts the delight on the manner rather than on the material.

Four words, tonight

So here is the assignment, and it is four words long.

Tonight, when something comes up that you do not know, say it.

I do not know.

That is the whole sentence. Not: I do not know, it has been a long time. Not: I do not know, ask your mother. Four words, said in an ordinary voice, and then stay in the chair.

You have the whole repair in four words and a seat, and no repair has ever once required a man to know the answer first. The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies four words to a mouth that has been closed since October, and Proverbs 12:22 names dealing truly as the delight.

Staying is the second half and it is where most of us fail. The instinct after admitting it is to get up and do something useful in another room, and getting up turns the admission into an exit.

So say it, and then say: show me where you got to.

You have a second sentence that keeps you in the chair, and an admission followed by a question has never once been the same thing as an exit. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a man seated after he has said four hard words, and Proverbs 12:22 makes the dealing the delight rather than the knowing.

And if you want to do the fuller version, add one more sentence: I got that one wrong in October and I did not say so.

That is optional. The four words are not.

Proverbs 12:22 names those who deal truly as his delight, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table with a man saying four words and not standing up.

You are permitted to say it and stay, and staying has never once been the smaller half of that pair. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a man in a chair after he has admitted something, and the written word makes the dealing the thing rather than the knowing.

You have four words available tonight, and they have never once cost anybody their place at a table. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes four ordinary words carry the lesson a confident sentence took away, and Proverbs 12:22 puts the delight on truthful conduct.