They Think We Are Getting Above Ourselves

It was one sentence in August and you have carried it since.

Nothing outrageous. Nothing anybody could be called out for. It was the tone more than the words, and the words themselves would look entirely harmless written down.

Something about how it must be nice. Something about how some people have grand ideas. Something that ended with a small laugh that was meant to make it a joke, and that was not a joke, and everybody in that kitchen heard exactly what it was.

And you said something back that was light and pleasant, and the conversation moved, and you have thought about it about two hundred times since.

Here is the thing I most want to name, and it is the reason this is worth an article of its own.

None of the paperwork has been as hard as this. Not one form, not one call, not one thing that nobody in your family knew how to do. All of that was difficult and it was survivable.

The cold from your own side is a completely different weight, and nobody warned you about it, because nobody talks about it.

I know thy pride

There is a moment in First Samuel where a young man arrives at a place he is not supposed to be, and his own brother says something to him.

And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart. (1 Samuel 17:28, King James Version)

Read the whole shape of it, because it is exact.

First, a question about what he is doing there. Second, a reminder of what he is actually for, which is the sheep, and the word few is doing a great deal of work in that sentence. Third, and only third, the accusation: I know thy pride.

That is the same sentence that was said in your kitchen in August, in a different century, in different words.

You are hearing something that Scripture recorded once already, and a remark about somebody getting above themselves has never once been a new sentence in a family. The Holy Spirit is the one in a kitchen where a small laugh landed in August, and First Samuel 17:28 preserves the exact shape of it.

Now the thing that verse settles, and it settles it completely.

David had not done anything. He had brought food to his brothers and asked a question. There was no pride, there was no naughtiness of heart, and the entire accusation was manufactured out of the fact that he had turned up somewhere.

The text records the accusation and then simply carries on. Nobody argues with Eliab. David says one short thing and turns away.

You have not done one thing to earn that remark, and turning up somewhere new has never once been the same as thinking yourself above anybody. The written word preserves the accusation without validating one word of it, and the Spirit of God is the one who tells a household what a remark actually was.

Why it is your own side that does this

Now let me say the honest thing about why this comes from family, because understanding it takes the sting out.

It is not usually malice. It is usually a mirror. When somebody in a family reaches for something the family has not done, everybody else in that family, without deciding to, is briefly presented with a question about their own life. Nobody enjoys that question. And a certain kind of person resolves it fastest by locating the fault in the person who raised it.

That is what the remark is. It is not an assessment of your household. It is a small piece of housekeeping in somebody else's chest, said out loud in your kitchen.

You are able to leave somebody else's discomfort where it belongs, and a sentence made out of another person's ache has never once been information about you. First Samuel 17:28 shows an accusation assembled entirely out of nothing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who hands a thing back to the person it actually came from.

You are being handed somebody else's housekeeping, and a remark made in a kitchen has never once been a report on the family it landed on. The Holy Spirit is the one who tells a family whose sentence that actually was, and First Samuel 17:28 has an elder brother producing an accusation out of nothing at all.

And here is the second thing, and it is the one that decides whether this gets worse.

The temptation is to answer it. To explain, next time, why this is not what they think. To mention something that demonstrates the family is still the same family. To be slightly smaller at gatherings.

Every one of those confirms the premise. Because a household that starts explaining itself has accepted that there is a charge, and once there is a charge there is a trial, and the trial runs at every family gathering for the next twenty years.

Wanting something for a child is not a verdict on a family.

You are able to decline the charge instead of answering it, and a household that never took the accusation seriously has never once had to defend itself against it. 1 Samuel 17:28 records David saying one short thing and turning away rather than mounting a defense, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a family out of a trial nobody has the right to hold.

Say nothing, then ask them something

So here is the thing to do, and it is two moves and the second one is the surprising one.

Say nothing at all in reply to the next remark. And then ask that person a question about their own life.

Nothing at all. Not a light deflection, not a joke back, not a mild correction. A pause, and then a question about them.

You are able to leave a remark completely unanswered, and a sentence that nobody replies to has never once been able to become an argument. It is written in First Samuel 17:28 that the accusation was made and that no defense against it was recorded, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing beside somebody who says nothing at all in a kitchen.

And then the question about them, which is the part that does the actual work.

Ask about their garden, their knee, their son, the thing they mentioned last time. Genuinely. Not pointedly, not as a weapon, and not with any edge in it at all.

Here is what that does. The remark came out of a small ache about their own life. And a question about their own life, asked with real interest, is the exact opposite of the thing they were braced for, and it disarms the whole exchange in about four seconds without anybody having to name anything.

You are able to answer an ache instead of an insult, and a question about somebody's own life has never once been received as a counterattack. Scripture lets the accusation stand in the record and moves the story straight on to what David actually did, and the same Spirit who kept that order is with you at the next gathering.

And it protects something else. Your children are in that room. What they will learn from watching this is not whether their parents can win an exchange. It is whether a family can be spoken to like that and stay warm.