I Take My Brother So I Do Not Have To Speak

Della has taken Wayne to the shop every time for eleven years.

He is her older brother, he is retired, he is glad to be asked, and he is genuinely useful, because he knows a fair amount and he has a way of standing in a room that means people talk to him properly.

Here is how it goes. Della drives. Wayne rides. They get there, and Wayne does the talking, and Della stands slightly behind and to the left with the keys in her hand.

She has never once asked a question at that counter. Not in eleven years.

And I want to say something about that arrangement before anything else, because there is a version of this message that treats it as a problem to be dismantled and it is not.

Bringing somebody is fine. It is what people do. Nobody should feel obliged to face every counter in their life alone, and a brother who is glad to come is a gift, and Della is right to use him.

The trouble is not the arrangement. It is that the arrangement has quietly become the only version.

Because at some point in eleven years, taking Wayne stopped being a convenience and became a requirement, and now Della cannot go without him. Not will not. Cannot. There was a Thursday in June when the car had to go in and Wayne was away, and Della moved the appointment.

She told herself it was easier that way. And it was easier. And it was also a woman rearranging her week around a thing she has never tested.

And here is the part she has not said to anybody, including Wayne.

She does not actually know whether she could do it. That is the thing that sits underneath. Not the memory of doing it badly, because there is no such memory. The absence of any evidence at all, in either direction, for eleven years.

Wayne said in the truck last time, entirely without weight, "You know he'd have answered you."

And Della said, "It's easier with you."

And Wayne said, "Sure," and left it, because he is a good brother.

Nothing here has ever been tested

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

I am not going to tell you to stop taking your brother. That would be foolish advice and I do not give it. Take him. Take him every time if you want to.

And I am not going to guess at anything about that car, because I have not seen it and it would be no use to anybody.

What I want to look at is the eleven years of no evidence.

You have eleven years of a fear that has never once been tested, and Scripture says God has not given His people the spirit of fear. 2 Timothy 1 names what was given instead, which is power and love and a sound mind, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes that an issue of what a man was handed rather than of what he can summon.

Here is the verse, and everybody knows the first half of it and almost nobody reads what is attached.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.Joshua 1:9

Now, that gets printed on things, and when it is printed on things it usually stops after be strong and of a good courage, which turns it into an instruction about a person's insides.

But read the whole sentence and notice the word for.

Be strong and of a good courage. For the LORD thy God is with thee.

The courage is not being generated out of Joshua. It is being handed to him, and the reason given is company. The whole command rests on a fact about who else is in the room, and it says nothing at all about what kind of man Joshua is.

Which means courage in that verse is not a quality somebody has. It is a reasonable response to accurate information about who is present.

You are not being asked to produce something out of yourself, and Scripture attaches the command to be strong to a fact about company rather than to a quality in the person. It is written be strong and of a good courage for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest, which makes the courage a response rather than a resource, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a fact about a garage counter in an ordinary week.

You have had that company at every one of those eleven years of counters, standing behind and to the left with the keys. Joshua 1 says whithersoever thou goest, which includes a service desk with a brother doing the talking, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that presence something already established rather than something to be arranged.

One question, with him standing right there

Here is the practical thing, and it is designed to cost almost nothing.

Take Wayne. Keep taking him. Nothing about the arrangement changes.

And at the next visit, ask one question yourself, out loud, while he is standing there.

It does not have to be a good question. It does not have to be a technical one. How long do you think you will have it? is a perfectly fine question. So is do you want me to leave the keys with you? So is which one of those is the urgent one?

The content is not the point. The point is that a sentence leaves Della's mouth at that counter, once, in eleven years, with the safest possible net in the room.

Because what is missing here is not courage. It is data. She has no idea what happens when she speaks in that room, and the only way anybody ever gets that is by speaking in that room, and the cheapest possible version of that experiment is one small question with her brother standing beside her.

You have permission to do the small version, and no verse anywhere requires a person to take the hardest available step first. Joshua 1 has God going with a man into a thing rather than sending him ahead to prove something, and the Spirit of God is what makes one ordinary question a real crossing.

And I want to say the tender part, because I think it is what has actually been running.

Della is not afraid of the mechanic. She is afraid of a specific two seconds: the moment where she says something and Wayne, out of pure helpfulness, jumps in and finishes it for her.

Not because he is unkind. Because he has been doing the talking for eleven years and his instinct is to take the load, and he would do it without a thought.

So tell him. Before you go in, in the truck. I'm going to ask something myself. Let me finish it. Wayne is a good brother and he will be delighted, and he will hold his tongue, and afterward he will be pleased in a way that neither of you expects.

You were never limited by that arrangement, and Scripture puts the company alongside the going rather than in place of it. It is written that the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest, which accompanies rather than substitutes, and His Spirit is what makes a brother and a sentence able to be in the same room.