I Will Not Write Anything Down In Front Of Him

You have a system and nobody knows about it.

Somebody needs a note for school, and you get the other adult to write it. A form comes home and it sits on the side for four days until there is a moment when nobody is in the room. He asks how to spell something and you say sound it out, which is good advice and is also, tonight, a dodge.

None of it looks like anything from outside. Each individual move is completely ordinary. It is only when you add up a month of them that a shape appears, and the shape is a man arranging his entire household so that nobody sees him write.

And what it costs is not the thing you would expect. It is not embarrassment, because nobody has ever caught you. It is the arranging itself, which takes up a surprising amount of a week.

My strength is made perfect in weakness

There is a sentence in Corinthians that is quoted constantly and is almost always softened when it gets quoted.

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9, King James Version)

Made perfect in weakness. Not despite weakness. In it. The weakness is the location, not the obstacle.

And then look at what Paul does with that, because this is the part that gets skipped. He does not simply accept his weakness quietly. He says he will glory in it. He talks about it. He puts it in a letter that he knows will be read out in front of everybody.

That is the opposite of a system of dodges.

You have been treating a weakness as something to be routed around, and scripture has never once treated one as a thing that has to be kept out of sight. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to a man with a form on the side, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 makes the weakness the very location of the strength.

And notice what he is not saying. He is not saying the weakness stops being a weakness. The thorn does not go. He asked three times and it did not go.

You were never promised that the thing gets fixed, and no verse has ever once made the removal the condition of the power. The Spirit of God is the one who makes that an actual arrangement rather than a consoling idea, and the written word keeps the infirmity and puts the strength inside it.

What the system costs

So let us add up the month, because I do not think it has ever been added up.

Every dodge requires planning. A small amount, but continuous. Somewhere in your head a list is running: which forms have come in and which have not, which moments the room will be empty, which questions can be deflected and how.

That is a background process running all the time, and it is running during the exact ten minutes when you are supposed to be present at a table.

You have been spending attention on management that has never once been available for the child in front of you. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what his own system has been costing him, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 relocates the strength into the weakness rather than into its concealment.

And there is a second thing, and it is the one that matters for a site about a kitchen table.

Your son is learning to write. That is most of what he is doing at the moment. And the entire adult world is presenting him with writing as a finished, effortless, invisible act, because no adult ever does it badly in front of him.

So when he gets something wrong, he has no evidence that getting it wrong is part of it. He has only the finished product, and himself, and the gap between the two.

You have the one piece of evidence he cannot get anywhere else, and it has never once been available from anybody who does it well. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an adult's imperfection into something a child can build on, and the written word has a man glory in his infirmity in public.

You were never withholding a weakness from him, and what has been withheld has never once been anything but the ordinary sight of a grown man trying. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that exchange possible tonight, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 puts the power in the open weakness rather than in the covered one.

One word, in the open

So here is the assignment, and it is one word long.

Tonight, at the table, write one word down where he can see it.

Any word. On the top of the page, on a scrap, on the back of an envelope. Say it as you write it if you want to.

You are being asked for one word and not for a page, and the whole of tonight has never once weighed more than a single line of ink. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the smallest possible act the right size for this, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 calls the grace sufficient as it stands.

And if it comes out wrong, leave it wrong.

That last part is the whole exercise. Do not cover it. Do not scribble it out and do it again. Do not make a joke that takes the weight off. Leave it there, and carry on with the next question.

You have the nerve for five seconds of a wrong word sitting in the open, and five seconds has never once been longer than the years of arranging. The Spirit of God is the one who holds a hand steady while it keeps moving, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 has a man name his infirmity in a letter he knows will be read aloud.

If he says something, say: yeah, I always get that one. And then carry on.

What that does is put one piece of true information into a room that has been carefully managed for years. It says: a grown man writes a word wrong and the evening continues.

2 Corinthians 12:9 has a man name his infirmity out loud in a letter, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table where somebody writes one word and does not cover it.

You are permitted to be seen getting something wrong, and being seen has never once been the same thing as being reduced. The Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man through five seconds of a wrong word sitting there, and the written word puts the strength inside the weakness and then tells everybody about it.

You have everything you need for one word, and it has never once required you to spell it correctly. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that enough for a Tuesday evening, and 2 Corinthians 12:9 keeps the thorn and supplies the power anyway.