It Only Happens When She Asks

You have never once started it.

That is the thing you have been quietly aware of for months. Other parents seem to sit down and begin something. You do not. You are available, and you answer things, and if she does not come and find you then nothing happens at all that evening.

And you have decided that this makes you passive. That the ten minutes is hers rather than yours, and that you are simply a resource she occasionally consults.

I want to look at that, because there is a real question in it and there is also a wrong assumption, and the wrong assumption is doing most of the damage.

And it has been bothering you for long enough now that it has a shape. It is not guilt exactly, because nothing has gone wrong. It is closer to a suspicion about yourself that you have never put into words and have never had any reason to test.

Ask, and it shall be given you

There is an instruction in Matthew about asking that is so familiar it has stopped being looked at.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (Matthew 7:7, King James Version)

Three verbs and all three of them belong to the person who wants something. Ask. Seek. Knock.

And the whole arrangement is built that way. The asking is the mechanism. It is not a fallback for people who cannot manage on their own.

You are looking at an arrangement where the asking is the design, and no request has ever once been a lesser form of getting help than an offer. Matthew 7:7 puts all three verbs on the one who needs, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a fact about a kitchen rather than about prayer alone.

And notice what the other party is doing in that verse. Being available. Present, ready, and not going first.

That is not passivity. In that verse it is the whole posture of God, and it is chosen.

You were never in a lesser position by waiting, and nothing anywhere has ever once described availability as an absence. The written word puts the initiating on the one who asks and the readiness on the one who gives, and the Spirit of God is the one who dignifies a posture a person has been apologizing for.

What the asking requires

Now let me say the thing that usually turns this around, and it is about your daughter rather than about you.

Asking for help is difficult. It is difficult for adults and it is much more difficult for children, because a request is an admission and children are extremely aware of what an admission costs.

So every time she comes and finds you, she has done something.

And she has done it repeatedly, which means she has learned something about the person she is coming to: that it is safe, that it does not cost her anything, that the answer will not be a lecture or a sigh or a lesson about having started earlier.

You have been receiving a piece of evidence every single time, and no child has ever once gone repeatedly to somebody who made it expensive. Matthew 7:7 builds the entire arrangement on the asking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a parent read their own daughter's behavior accurately.

And here is the other half, which is about the difference between offering and waiting.

An offered help arrives whether or not it was wanted, and a child has to manage that. A requested help arrives exactly when it is useful, into a problem that has already been identified by the person who has it.

The second one is more useful. It is not a compromise. It is the better version, and you have been running it without noticing.

You have been doing the harder and better thing, and offering has never once been the more attentive of the two. The written word makes the request the trigger rather than the failure, and the Spirit of God is the one who reframes a waiting a person has been calling a fault.

You were never absent from those evenings, and nobody has ever once been available and absent at the same time. Matthew 7:7 has the giver ready before anybody asks, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes readiness into a real position.

Count the asking

So here is the assignment, and it is a number.

Tonight, count the times she asks you something. And write the number down.

Anything counts. A question about the work. A question about a word. Coming to find you to complain about it. Showing you something. Asking you where something is.

Write the number at the end of the evening, on a piece of paper, and do it again the next night and the night after.

You are collecting a fact rather than defending a position, and a tally has never once had an opinion in it. Matthew 7:7 makes the request the engine of the whole arrangement, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present while the marks go down.

After a week there will be data about a thing that has only ever been a feeling.

You have a way to replace an impression with a count, and a count has never once been able to be as unkind as an impression. Matthew 7:7 puts the whole arrangement on the asking, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present while a week gets written down.

And most parents in this position find the number is considerably higher than the feeling, because a feeling of not initiating anything does not keep a record, and the record turns out to be full.

Matthew 7:7 makes the asking the engine of the whole arrangement, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table with somebody writing a number on a piece of paper.

You are permitted to count something you have only ever felt, and a number has never once been as unkind as a feeling. The written word puts the three verbs on the one who needs, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present while the tally gets kept.

You have been asked for something repeatedly, and nobody has ever once been asked repeatedly by somebody who found them hard to approach. Matthew 7:7 grounds the whole arrangement in the request, and it is the Holy Spirit who turns a tally into an honest report.