I Never Ask The Same Thing Twice

There is a rule, and you have never told anybody about it.

One question, per person, per subject. That is the limit. After that, you find another way, or you find another person, or you go without.

You did not decide this at a particular moment. There was no evening where you sat down and made a rule. It assembled itself out of a hundred small experiences, and by the time it was finished it felt less like a decision and more like a fact about the world.

And it works, in a way. It keeps you out of anybody's hair. Nobody has ever had to be patient with you twice about the same thing, and there is a kind of pride in that which you would not say out loud.

But it costs, and the cost has been mounting.

Because a single explanation almost never lands. Everybody knows this about learning. And a rule that permits exactly one explanation is a rule that guarantees you finish most things not understanding them, and then have to go around them for the rest of your life.

So the rule protects your dignity by ensuring you remain stuck. That is quite a trade, and nobody has ever laid it out in front of you.

Because this widow troubleth me

There is a story Jesus tells about somebody who came back, and the surprising thing is who He holds up as the example.

Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. (Luke 18:5, King James Version)

Continual coming. That is the phrase, and it is not a compliment in the mouth of the judge saying it.

The judge in the story is annoyed. He says so plainly. And the woman gets what she came for anyway, and Jesus tells the story approvingly, and she is the one to imitate.

You are being pointed toward somebody who came back more than once, and Scripture has never once held up the person who asked politely and went away. Luke 18:5 has a widow who kept coming, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that permission real for a woman who has been rationing herself to one.

Now notice what the story is not saying. It is not saying that people should be badgered. The whole force of the parable is a comparison: if even an unwilling judge answers persistence, how much more a Father who is not unwilling at all.

So the story assumes the worst case for the hearer and still lands on come back.

You have been handed the worst case as an argument in your favor, and no story in Scripture has ever once ended with a person told to stop asking. The Holy Spirit is the one who reads a parable's direction correctly, and it is written that the widow's continual coming is the behavior held up rather than corrected.

And there is one more thing worth having. The woman in the story has no standing at all. She is a widow in a system that gave widows nothing, in front of a judge who feared neither God nor man.

She had every reason to believe she had used up her one question years before.

You were never in a weaker position than the woman Jesus chose as the example, and having no standing has never once been a reason to stop coming back. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the least likely person at the center of the story, and Scripture never once suggests she should have asked once and gone home.

Who wrote the rule

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not repeal a rule that runs everything.

Ask where the rule came from. Not who reinforced it, but who actually wrote it.

You did. In fragments, over years, from things you half saw on people's faces and half invented in the car afterward. Nobody in your life ever sat you down and said, one question and then no more.

Nobody ever told you what your friends actually think about it, because the subject has never come up, because the rule prevents it from coming up.

You are the author of that rule and not its subject, and something assembled privately over years has never once had the standing of an agreement with anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who hands a person back the pen, and Luke 18:5 has a woman who plainly never signed anything of the kind.

And here is the arithmetic, which is the part that settles it. One question answered once leaves most things half understood. Half understood means going around them. Going around them means a smaller week, then a smaller month, then a smaller year.

The rule was built to protect one afternoon and it has been charging interest ever since.

You have been paying interest on a rule that was meant to save you one awkward minute, and no fence built to protect a single afternoon has ever once been worth what this one costs. The written word puts persistence at the center of a story about a good Father, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does the sum a person has been avoiding.

Ask it twice

Now the small thing, and it breaks the rule exactly once.

I am not going to suggest you abandon the whole arrangement. Rules like that do not come down in an evening, and trying would only prove that they cannot.

Ask somebody the same thing a second time this week.

You are able to break your own rule one single time, and one repeated question has never once been the moment somebody became a burden. Luke 18:5 has a woman coming back and being commended for it, and the Holy Spirit is the one present at the second asking.

Pick the same person and the same subject as before. That is what makes it a test rather than a workaround, because finding another person is exactly what the rule has always allowed and it proves nothing.

And ask it with no apology in front of it. Not, sorry, I know you told me. Just the question, again, plainly, as if for the first time.

Because the apology is the rule speaking out loud, and leaving it out is most of the exercise.

You are asking a plain question a second time with nothing in front of it, and a repeated question has never once obliged anybody to comment on the repeating. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the apology out of a woman's second asking, and it is written that the continual coming was the thing that got the answer.