He Thinks He Let Us All Down

You said sorry to your grandmother.

She had not asked for one. She had rung to see how you were, the way she rings every Sunday, and somewhere in the middle of it you said sorry, and she said what on earth for, and you said something vague about how she had been telling everybody.

And she said, quite firmly, that she had been telling everybody because she was proud, and that this had not changed.

You said thanks and moved on and did not believe a word of it.

That is the fourth apology in two weeks. There was one to your mother in the car. There was a half one to your father, which came out as a joke. And there was the thing you said to your younger sister, which was not an apology exactly but was the same shape.

And here is the situation, and it is worth seeing clearly: you are apologizing, repeatedly, to a group of people who are not accepting the apologies, because they do not believe there is anything to accept.

You have decided that a decision made in an office is a thing you did to your family.

I have called thee by thy name

There is a sentence in Isaiah that God says to a whole people who had concluded they were finished.

Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. (Isaiah 43:1, King James Version)

Three clauses, and every one of them is in the perfect tense. I have redeemed. I have called. Thou art mine. Nothing in that sentence is conditional and nothing in it is pending.

And look at the middle one especially, because it is the one for you. I have called thee by thy name.

Not by your outcome. Not by your result. Not by what happened in an office in the spring. By your name, which is the thing about a person that does not move when circumstances do.

You are called by your own name and not by a result, and a decision made in an office has never once been able to rename anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one on a phone call with somebody apologizing to his own grandmother, and Isaiah 43:1 puts all three clauses in the perfect tense with no condition attached anywhere.

Now the first two words, which are the ones you skipped over.

Fear not. That is an instruction given to people whose situation had genuinely gone wrong, and it is not given because everything turned out fine. It is given on the basis of what follows it: fear not, because these three things are already true and were true before any of this happened.

You have three finished things standing behind you, and a bad spring has never once been able to reach backward into a thing that was already settled. The written word gives the reason before it gives any outcome, and the Spirit of God is the one who tells a person what has not moved.

What the apologies are doing

Now the practical part, and it is about your family rather than about you, which is why I want you to hear it.

Every apology you make asks them to do something impossible.

Your grandmother cannot accept an apology for a thing she does not consider an offense. So when you say sorry, she has two options: she can argue with you, which makes her feel like she is dismissing your feelings, or she can accept it, which would mean agreeing that you did something wrong.

So she says what on earth for, and you say thanks, and nothing is resolved, and next Sunday it happens again.

You are able to stop handing them something they cannot take, and four apologies in two weeks have never once been able to close a thing that nobody opened. Isaiah 43:1 names a person by name rather than by performance, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room where an apology has nowhere to land.

And there is a second cost, and this one is the one that will do actual damage if it runs for a year.

Nobody in that family has done this before. Which means that in your head, this was never only about one person. It was about a family arriving somewhere, with one nineteen year old carrying it, and a decision that would be a disappointment to anybody else has turned into a failure to deliver something on behalf of everybody.

And what that quietly does is make your family into an audience with expectations, and once they are an audience, you cannot be honest with any of them, because being honest with an audience is a performance too.

A decision about an application is not a verdict on a family.

You are able to have a family instead of an audience, and being the first one going has never once made you responsible for delivering anything to anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who turns an audience back into a household, and Isaiah 43:1 calls a person by name and claims him outright.

Say the real sentence once

So here is the thing to do, and it is the opposite of another apology.

Say to one person in your family that you feel like you let them down. And then let them answer it.

Notice the difference. Sorry is a transaction, and it asks them to close something. This is a disclosure. It tells them what is actually happening in you, and it hands them the true thing rather than the polite version of it.

You are able to tell them what is happening in you rather than apologize for it, and one honest sentence has never once required anybody to pretend it was nothing. It is written in Isaiah 43:1 that God calls a person by name and claims him, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a kitchen when somebody says the real sentence instead of the polite one.

And then let them answer. Actually let them.

That means not saying yeah, I know, when they start. Not saying thanks and changing the subject at the eight second mark, which is what happened with your grandmother. Let the answer be given at whatever length they want to give it, even if it is uncomfortable, even if somebody gets emotional.

Because the answer is the thing you actually need, and you have been cutting it off every time it starts. Four times now.

You are able to stay in the room for the answer, and eight seconds of somebody's reply have never once been the whole of what they had to say. Scripture says thou art mine in three words and does not hedge them, and the same Spirit who put that plainly is in the kitchen while somebody tells you what your family actually thinks.