I Did Not Know What To Ask

They said: do you have any questions.

And you said no. Or you said something that was not a question with a rising tone on the end of it, and everybody nodded, and that was that.

And then you got to the car and there were four of them.

That is the part that makes this so uncomfortable. It is not that you had nothing. It is that nothing would come while you were in the room, and then it all arrived the moment it was useless.

And you have been reading that silence as a fact about yourself. That you are not the kind of person who knows what to ask in rooms like that. That other parents come in with lists.

I want to give you a different reading, and then one very small piece of equipment.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask

There is a sentence in James that is about exactly this and is usually applied to much grander things.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1:5, King James Version)

Start with the assumption underneath it. If any of you lack wisdom. It does not open with a failure, or a reprimand, or a comparison. It treats lacking as an ordinary, expected condition of people who are otherwise entirely capable.

You are addressed by that verse exactly as you are, and it has never once required a person to arrive already knowing. James 1:5 opens by naming the lack rather than by naming a fault, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an invitation out of a sentence that could have been a reprimand.

And then the two things said about the giving are worth slowing down for.

Liberally means without measuring. Not carefully portioned out, and not according to what was done with the last lot.

And upbraideth not means without reproach. Without the giver making a remark about the asking. Without a sigh.

You have been offered something without a sigh attached, and heaven has never once measured out what it gives according to who deserves it. James 1:5 names both the liberality and the absence of reproach, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that credible to somebody who felt small in a small room.

And notice what that rules out. It rules out the idea that not knowing is a disqualification, because the whole verse is addressed to people who do not know and assumes they will be asking.

You were never disqualified by not knowing, and no verse has ever once treated lacking as a mark against a person. The written word builds the lacking into its opening clause, and the Spirit of God is the one who removes the shame from an honest gap.

Why nothing came in the room

Here is the mechanism, and it is not about intelligence at all.

In that room about six things were happening at once. Listening. Reading faces. Managing your own reaction. Tracking whether it all sounded reasonable. Trying to remember a thing from a letter. Being somebody's parent in front of professionals.

Question formation is expensive, and there was no capacity left for it.

You have been grading yourself on a task nobody could perform under that load, and a mind full of six jobs has never once had a seventh available. James 1:5 assumes the lack rather than accusing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names a capacity problem instead of a character one.

And there is a second reason, which is about the shape of the meeting.

The invitation arrives at the end. It arrives after all the information, when a person is full, tired, and has already started the process of getting out of the room politely.

That is the worst possible moment to ask anybody for anything, and it is the only moment most of us are offered.

You are able to see that the question came at the wrong end of the meeting, and no parent has ever once been able to compose one in the last thirty seconds. The written word invites the asking without setting a moment for it, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a person move the timing themselves.

You were never the only person who said no and then found four in the car, and that has never once been a rare experience in any car park anywhere. James 1:5 treats the lacking as common and the supply as unmeasured, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes the loneliness out of a very ordinary thing.

One question, folded, in a pocket

So here is the piece of equipment, and it is a piece of paper.

Tonight, write one question down. Just one.

Not a list. A list is a different project and it will not survive the room either. One question, the one you would most like an actual answer to.

Then fold it and put it somewhere you will find it. In the coat you wear to those things. In the bag. In your purse or your wallet.

You have a question already, and it has never once been the having that was difficult. James 1:5 invites the asking without prescribing a single thing about how, and the Spirit of God is the one who carries what a person could not hold in the moment.

And at the next meeting, take it out at the beginning. Not at the end. Say: I wrote one thing down. Then read it.

You are permitted to bring an instrument into that room, and a carpenter has never once been asked to work without one. James 1:5 puts no condition on the manner of the asking, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when a folded square comes out of a coat pocket.

Taking a piece of paper out is the whole trick, because it removes the two things that stopped you last time. You do not have to compose under load, and you do not have to be the sort of person who has questions, because the paper is the person who has questions.

Some of you will feel self conscious about the paper. Take it anyway. Nobody in that room will think anything about it at all, and if they do, that is a four second thought in their day and a whole term in yours.

James 1:5 says let him ask, and puts no conditions on the manner of the asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table where somebody writes one line and folds it.

You are permitted to ask from a piece of paper, and nobody has ever once been required to produce a question from memory under pressure. The written word invites the asking and adds no rules about how, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody unfolding a piece of paper in a small room.

You have one question tonight, and it has never once needed to be the best one. James 1:5 gives liberally rather than in proportion to the quality of the request, and it is the Holy Spirit who supplies what a person could not find in the moment.