I Keep Adding A Reason

She was standing right there.

That is the part that has been sitting in you since Sunday. Somebody asked, you gave the answer, and then you added the clause, and she was about four feet away holding a plate.

The clause varies. It is always something like: which is what she wanted. Or: and she is very happy. Or: it is actually a good time to be doing that. Or, the worst one, which came out in September: and she can always go later.

Every one of them is affectionate. Every one of them is meant kindly and is genuinely meant.

And she has now heard about forty of them.

Here is what I want to name at the start, and it is not an accusation. You are not embarrassed by your daughter. Anybody who watched you say her name would see that in about two seconds.

What is happening is a reflex, and the reflex was installed by exactly one thing: the first time somebody's face did something when you answered, and you filled the gap. And you have been filling it ever since, and she has been standing four feet away for most of it.

Let your yea be yea

There is an instruction in Matthew that is about oaths and that lands on exactly this.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Matthew 5:37, King James Version)

Whatsoever is more than these.

The instruction is not about honesty. Nobody in that passage is lying. It is about the additions: the extra weight, the reinforcement, the material a person attaches to a plain statement in order to make it hold better.

And Jesus says that the additional material is where the trouble is.

You are dealing with an addition and not a dishonesty, and an extra clause meant kindly has never once been the same as the plain sentence it was attached to. Matthew 5:37 puts the whole difficulty in whatsoever is more than these, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room with a man who has been adding since September.

Now, why the additions cause trouble, which the verse assumes and does not explain.

An addition implies that the plain version was not enough. That is what it communicates, always, in every context. A man who says yes and then reinforces it has told the room that his yes required reinforcing, and the room hears that rather than the reinforcement.

Which means every clause has done the exact opposite of its intention, forty times, in front of a nineteen year old.

You are able to hand her a sentence with nothing propping it up, and eight plain words about a real life have never once needed help to stay upright in a room. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a reflex out of a good man's mouth, and Matthew 5:37 declares the plain word sufficient and puts the trouble entirely in the addition.

You have been reinforcing something that never needed it, and a plain sentence about a real life has never once required a clause behind it to stand up. The written word locates the problem in the addition rather than in the statement, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a man what his own kindness has been saying.

What she has learned

Now the part that matters, and it is not about the relatives.

She has heard forty of them.

And a nineteen year old standing four feet away, holding a plate, hearing her own father attach a justification to her life for the fortieth time, learns something. Not that he is ashamed of her. She knows he is not.

She learns that it needs one.

That is the lesson. That out in the world, among people, what she is doing does not stand on its own and has to be helped along, and that her own father, who loves her, agrees.

You are able to stop teaching her that her life needs help standing up, and a clause added out of love has never once been received as love by the person it was about. Matthew 5:37 warns about what is more than the plain thing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a father what a girl with a plate has been learning since September.

And here is the second half of it, which will show up in about four years.

She will do it herself.

That is how these things transfer. She will be twenty three, somebody will ask her what she does, and a clause will come out of her mouth that she did not decide to say, and it will be in your voice, and neither of you will ever connect it to a room in September.

That is not a guilt trip. It is simply how it works, and it is the reason this is worth changing now rather than eventually.

A different road is not a verdict on anybody.

You are able to stop something before it transfers, and a reflex handed down without a word has never once been a reflex anybody chose. The Spirit of God is the one who interrupts a transfer before it completes, and Matthew 5:37 names the addition as the thing to watch.

Say it in front of her, with nothing after

So here is the thing to do, and the two conditions on it are the whole of it.

Say what she is doing, once, in front of her, with nothing after the sentence.

In front of her. That is deliberate and it is the more important of the two conditions.

Because the forty clauses happened in front of her, and a correction that happens when she is not in the room corrects nothing at all. She has to hear the plain version, in the same kind of room, from the same man, with nobody adding anything.

You are able to correct it in the room where it happened, and forty clauses said in front of somebody have never once been undone by a resolution made privately. It is written in Matthew 5:37 to let your communication be yea, yea, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room where a father says the plain sentence with his daughter four feet away.

And nothing after. Not one word.

The pull to add will be extremely strong, and it will be strongest in the second and a half after the sentence lands, when somebody's face does the thing and the clause is right there ready.

Let it go past. Say the sentence and then pick up your cup or ask them something about their own week.

And she will hear it. She will not say anything about it, possibly ever, and she will hear it, and what she will hear is that her father can say what she does without helping it along.

You are able to hand her one sentence that stands on its own, and eight words with nothing behind them have never once needed anybody's help to stay up. Scripture puts the whole warning on what is more than the plain thing, and the same Spirit who kept the instruction that short is beside you when you stop.