I Think My Questions Waste Their Time

There were four people ahead of Tori and a phone ringing that nobody was getting to.

She could see two men through the doorway with a car up on a lift, and one of them called something across, and the woman at the desk answered without looking up, and the phone was still going.

Tori had one question. She had written it down that morning because she knew she would lose it. It was on her phone, in a note, seven words long.

And she stood in that room for about six minutes, watching how busy it was, and by the time she got to the desk the question had been quietly withdrawn.

What she said was: "Hi, I'm dropping off, it's the one with the noise. No rush."

No rush. She said that in a shop with four people waiting and a phone going, as though the problem were that they might hurry on her account.

Then she left, and got about halfway home, and remembered the note.

Now, here is the thing about Tori that makes this worth writing about.

She is not a person who cannot ask. She is a person who is extremely good at reading a room, and what she reads, in a busy room, is these people are under pressure and I should take up as little as possible.

That is not timidity. That is consideration, and it is one of the better things about her, and everybody who knows her would say so.

The trouble is what consideration costs when it is aimed at a room that is not actually asking for it.

Because that shop was busy the way shops are busy. Nobody in there was hoping the customers would ask fewer things. The woman at the desk was doing her job, which includes the questions, and the question would have taken eleven seconds, and it would have gone into the job sheet and made the whole thing work better for everybody including the men through the doorway.

Her friend said in the car later, "Did you ask about the other thing?"

And Tori said, "It was so busy."

And her friend said, "Right," and did not push, and Tori thought about that afterward too.

Consideration aimed at a room that never asked for it

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

I am not going to tell you to stop reading rooms. That is a real skill and most people do not have it and the world is better for the ones who do.

And I am not going to guess at what that noise is, because I have not seen the car and it would help nobody.

What I want to look at is the eleven seconds.

Here is the verse, and the second half of it is the whole message and it is almost always left off.

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.1 Peter 5:7

For he careth for you.

That is the reason given. Not: because the care is small enough to be worth His time. Not: because a hearing has been earned. Not: because He has a gap in the schedule.

Because He cares for you.

Which means the whole transaction rests on His disposition rather than on any assessment of the size or the worth of the thing being brought.

And notice the word all. Casting all your care. Not the important ones. Not the ones that clear a bar. Peter does not put a filter anywhere in that sentence, which means there is no category of care that is too small to bring, and a person sorting their own concerns into worth-mentioning and not-worth-mentioning is doing a job nobody assigned.

You are not somebody whose questions take up more room than they are worth, and Scripture puts the invitation on His caring rather than on the size of what is brought. It is written casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you, which gives the reason as His disposition and puts no filter on what qualifies, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a fact about a busy Tuesday morning.

You have been sorting your own concerns for years into ones that qualify and ones that do not, and the passage never once asks anybody to do that. 1 Peter 5 says all your care without a threshold anywhere in it, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that absence a real permission rather than a nice thought.

Reverse the order

Here is the practical thing, and it is a reordering rather than a new sentence.

Tori has a habit and the habit ends every exchange with thanks, no rush, which is a lovely thing to say and which functions, in practice, as a door closing.

Once thanks is out, the conversation is over. Everybody in the room knows it. And her question, which was alive right up to that moment, has nowhere left to go.

So put the question before the thank you.

That is the entire technique. Not: be more assertive. Not: care less about being a bother. Just move one thing in front of another thing.

It's the one with the noise. Quick question before I go, does the same thing cover [whatever it is]? ... Great, thanks, no rush.

The thank you still gets said. The consideration is still there. The question simply happens on the near side of the door instead of the far side.

You have permission to put your own question first, and no verse anywhere makes a person's courtesy conditional on going without. 1 Peter 5 has the casting happen because He cares rather than because the thing is important enough, and the Spirit of God is what makes one reordered sentence an act of agreement with that.

And I want to say the tender part, because the difficult one is the phrase underneath all of this.

Tori is not afraid of the mechanic. She is afraid of a category, and the category is: the person who makes things harder in a room that is already under pressure.

That is a costume, and it does not fit her, and she has never once been that person in her life. What she has been is a woman who checks constantly whether she is that person, which is exactly what somebody who is not that person does.

The actual difficult ones never wonder.

You were never the person you have been checking that you are not, and Scripture puts a person's standing in Christ rather than in an assessment of how much room they take. It is written that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble, which is 1 Peter 5 two verses earlier putting the grace exactly where a woman like this stands, and His Spirit is what makes that a settled fact rather than a hope.