I Left Without Asking The Question

Grant has taken the same question into that building twice.

The first time was in June. He got as far as the counter, said what the car was doing, listened to the answer, said thanks, and drove home. And about a mile down the road he realized he had not asked it, and there was a moment where he considered turning round, and then he did not.

The second time was three weeks ago, and it went exactly the same way, except that this time he noticed at the door rather than a mile down the road, and stood on the step for a second before he kept walking.

The question is not complicated. It is not technical. It is nine words: Is this the same thing as the noise last year?

That is it. That is what he wants to know. He has wanted to know it for fifteen months.

Now I want to look at what actually happens at that counter, because it is not nerve and it is not forgetting.

What happens is that a conversation at a service desk has a natural end, and it arrives sooner than a person expects.

The man says what he is going to do. He looks up. There is a small pause that means we are finished here. And a courteous man reads that pause correctly, because it is a real signal and he is right about what it means, and he says thanks and picks up his keys.

The question needed to go in about two seconds earlier than that, and there is no way to know where those two seconds are until they have gone.

So Grant is not failing to be assertive. He is losing a race he cannot see the clock on.

His wife asked in the summer, after the first time, "Did they say if it's the same as last year?"

And Grant said, "I think it's different."

Which is not what anybody told him. It is what he decided on the drive home, because a man has to put something in the space where an answer should be.

The question keeps getting carried back out

Let me put down what I am not doing, so nothing has to brace.

I am not going to guess whether it is the same thing as last year. I have not seen the car and I would not know, and a stranger handing a man an answer he then repeats to his wife would be doing real damage.

And I am not going to tell you the shop should have asked you whether you had questions. Some do and some do not, and a man's own question is his to ask.

What I want to look at is the two seconds.

You were not being greedy in that room, and no verse anywhere treats a person's need to know as an imposition. Hebrews 4 has a throne of grace approached boldly so that help may be found in time of need, which makes the coming the point rather than a thing to be excused, and the Holy Spirit is what makes two seconds at a counter the same coming.

Here is the verse, and there is a structural detail in it that almost nobody notices.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.Matthew 7:7

Three verbs, and they are not three ways of saying the same thing.

Ask is a word. It happens in a sentence.

Seek is a search. It takes time and it involves moving around.

Knock is physical. It happens at a door, with a hand, and it makes a sound whether anybody is ready or not.

And Jesus puts all three in a row, with the same promise attached to each, which means He is describing a whole range of ways of going after a thing, from the spoken to the physical, and He is not ranking them.

That matters here, because Grant has been trying to do this with the first one and losing every time. And there is nothing in that verse that requires the asking to be a spoken sentence delivered in a two second window.

A question written on a card and handed across a counter is a knock. It is physical. It makes a sound in the room whether or not the timing was right.

You are not somebody who fails to ask, and Scripture puts asking and seeking and knocking side by side without ranking one above the others. It is written ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, which offers a range of approaches with the same promise on each, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a practical fact about a service desk.

You have been trying the version that has to beat a clock, and the passage never once required that one. Matthew 7 sets a physical knock beside a spoken ask as equally valid, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a card in a hand as real as a sentence in a mouth.

Give it to the room and leave it there

Here is the practical thing, and it is a card.

Write the question on it. Nine words, in your own hand. Hand it over with the keys.

Say one sentence with it: Could you look at this while it's in?

Then let go of the card.

And here is what that does that the spoken version cannot. A card stays in the room after Grant has left it. It sits on a desk, or gets clipped to a job sheet, or goes on a screen. It does not depend on anybody remembering an exchange at a counter, and it does not depend on Grant finding two seconds that keep moving.

It also does something quieter. It changes what he is carrying out of that building. Twice now he has walked out holding the same question, and each time it got a little heavier, because now it is a question plus two failures to ask it.

Hand over the card and he walks out holding nothing.

You have permission to knock rather than to ask, and no verse anywhere makes the spoken version the only one that counts. Matthew 7 puts the knocking on the same footing as the asking, and the Spirit of God is what makes a written question handed across a counter a complete act rather than a workaround.

And I want to say the thing about the drive home, because it is the real cost.

I think it's different. That is what Grant told his wife, and it was not information, it was a placeholder. He put it in the space where an answer should have been, because a man cannot walk around with an open question about the thing his household depends on and so he closes it himself, with a guess, and then the guess gets repeated and becomes what the household believes.

That is a small quiet harm and it has been running for fifteen months.

You were never required to supply your own answer, and Scripture puts the giving on the far side of the asking rather than on the asker. It is written that it shall be given you, which puts the supply somewhere other than in the one who wants it, and His Spirit is what makes waiting for a real answer better than manufacturing a placeholder.