It Is March And It Has Not Stopped

Somebody told you a few weeks in September and you believed them.

They were being kind. It is what people say, and it is true for a great many people, and the person who said it was almost certainly describing their own experience accurately.

A few weeks. So you did the arithmetic and expected something around the end of October.

And it is now March.

And here is the situation that produces, which is not the one anybody warns about: you now have two problems. The first is the original one, which has not gone. The second is a new one, which is that it should have gone and did not, and that second problem is in some ways worse than the first, because it is about you rather than about the situation.

Because the missing is understandable in October. In March it has become a question about a person.

Here is what I want to say before anything else. The few weeks was not a fact. It was a description of somebody else, offered kindly, and you have been measuring yourself against a number that was never about you.

Though it tarry, wait for it

There is a line in Habakkuk that is unusual in Scripture because it explicitly deals with something taking longer than expected.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habakkuk 2:3, King James Version)

Though it tarry.

That phrase exists because the tarrying was anticipated. God is not surprised by the delay, and He does not treat it as a failure in the man who is waiting, and He does not offer a revised date.

He acknowledges the tarrying directly and says: wait for it.

You are inside a delay that was anticipated rather than a delay that means something, and something taking longer has never once been a report on the person doing the waiting. Habakkuk 2:3 names the tarrying out loud before instructing anybody, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room in March with somebody who was told a few weeks.

Now the phrase before it: an appointed time.

Which means there was a real schedule, and it was never the one anybody had estimated. The vision was not late. It was on its own schedule, and the estimate was the thing that was wrong.

That is not a small distinction. It is the difference between a person who is behind and a person who is on time by a clock they cannot see.

You are on a schedule you did not set, and an estimate that turned out to be wrong has never once made anybody late. The written word puts the appointed time above every human estimate of it, and the Spirit of God is the one who reads a life by the right clock.

The second problem is the one to treat

Now the practical part, and it is about which of the two problems to work on.

The first problem, the missing itself, is not solvable by any effort of yours and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It will do what it does.

The second problem is entirely solvable, and it is the one doing most of the damage now.

Because what has actually happened since about November is that you stopped telling anybody. In October it was normal and everybody was in it and it was a shared subject. By March it feels like an admission, so you have gone quiet about it, and now you are six months into a thing that everybody assumes finished for you in October.

You are carrying a second problem made entirely of silence, and a thing that took longer than expected has never once become shameful by taking longer. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a delay from a disgrace, and Habakkuk 2:3 anticipates the tarrying without one word of embarrassment about it.

And here is what the silence has cost, specifically.

Everybody around you is holding a picture that was accurate in November and has not been updated since, and every one of them would revise it in about four seconds if given the chance.

Nobody has been given the chance for four months.

Taking longer is not a verdict on a person.

You are able to update a picture that has been out of date since November, and four months of silence have never once been the same as four months of nobody caring. Habakkuk 2:3 says the vision will speak at the end and does not require anybody to be quiet in the meantime, and the Spirit of God is the one who ends a quiet that started because a date went past.

Say the number out loud

So here is the thing to do, and the number is the whole of the instruction.

Tell one person that it has been six months and that it has not stopped. And give the actual number of months.

The number is what makes it real information rather than a mood. It has been six months. Not: I am still finding it a bit hard. The actual number.

You are able to hand somebody a real number, and a specific count of months has never once been the same thing as a vague admission. It is written in Habakkuk 2:3 that though it tarry, wait for it, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a room where somebody finally says how long it has been.

Here is what the number does that a general statement cannot.

It makes clear that this is not a bad week. Everybody has a response ready for a bad week and none of those responses fit six months, so the number stops the automatic answer before it arrives and makes the person actually think.

And it will not sound like a complaint. A count is a fact. It is the vaguer version that sounds like a complaint, because a vague version asks the listener to guess how bad it is, and guessing is uncomfortable and people resolve it by minimizing.

Give them the number and they cannot minimize it and they will not try.

You are able to say a number that stops an automatic reply, and a count of months has never once sounded like a person asking for sympathy. Scripture states the appointed time and the tarrying together and lets both be true, and the same Spirit who kept them together is with you when the number is said.

And if six months of this has begun to carry thoughts about not being here at all, that is not something to wait out. Tell somebody today, out loud, in person if you can, and if it is urgent go to an emergency room or ring an emergency number where you are. A long thing getting heavy is a reason to say it sooner, not later.