The Question Is At The Bottom Of A Long Message

The question is on line eleven and it is one sentence long.

Above it there are four paragraphs. Context, mostly. Why you are asking. What you have already tried. An acknowledgment that they are probably busy. A short section explaining that it is not urgent, twice.

And then, at the bottom, the eight words you actually need answered.

You have noticed something about those messages and it has been bothering you. A lot of them do not get answered. Not because anybody is being unkind. They get read, and something in the reader goes, I will deal with that properly later, and later does not arrive.

Meanwhile the short ones you send about arrangements get answered in four minutes.

So you have the evidence already. You have simply never let yourself draw the conclusion, because the conclusion sounds like it is criticizing you and you have had enough of that from your own head.

Let me draw it instead, gently.

The four paragraphs are not helping the reader. They are protecting the writer. And in protecting the writer they are burying the question, and a buried question does not get dug up by a busy person on a Tuesday.

Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay

There is an instruction about plain speech, and it is shorter than almost anything else in the sermon it belongs to.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Matthew 5:37, King James Version)

Let your communication be. Yes, or no. The instruction itself is four words long, which is the whole point of it.

And the context is about oaths, about people piling up guarantees and elaborations to make themselves believed.

You are permitted a yes that is yes and a no that is no, and no plain sentence has ever once needed to be propped up by the ones around it. Matthew 5:37 says let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes short speech safe for somebody who has been elaborating for years.

Now the part that sounds harsh until you understand it. Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

That is not calling anybody wicked for being wordy. The elaborating is being described as coming out of something wrong in the situation, and the wrong thing is a world where a plain word is not trusted.

You have been elaborating because a plain word has felt unsafe, and no piling up of words has ever once come from a person who felt secure. The Holy Spirit is the one who names the cause rather than scolding the symptom, and it is written that the excess comes out of something wrong rather than out of a fault in the speaker.

And notice what the instruction is offering. It is not asking for less. It is offering a rest.

A person whose yes is yes does not have to construct anything. There is nothing to maintain and nothing to remember. It is a lighter way to live and it is being handed over rather than demanded.

You were being offered a rest rather than a rule, and no instruction in that sermon has ever once asked a person to carry more than they were carrying. The Spirit of God is the one who hands a lighter arrangement to somebody who has been building, and Scripture puts the short form forward as the safe one.

What the four paragraphs are doing

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not shorten a message.

Read them again and name what each one is for. Not what it says. What it is for.

The context paragraph is there so nobody thinks the asking was careless. The what I have already tried paragraph is there so nobody thinks it was lazy. The they are probably busy paragraph is there so nobody feels imposed upon. The not urgent paragraph is there so nobody feels pressured.

Every single one is defending you against a charge that nobody has made.

You are defending against charges nobody has ever brought, and no reader has ever once opened a message already believing the worst of the person who sent it. The Spirit of God is the one who names what a habit is actually doing, and Matthew 5:37 puts the short form on the safe side of the line.

And here is the practical half, which is about them rather than about you.

A four paragraph message asks the reader for a decision before they even find the question. They have to work out how much attention this needs, and that decision is work, and work gets postponed.

An eight word question asks for nothing. It can be answered from a doorway with a coat on.

That is why the short ones come back in four minutes. Nobody ever told you that, and it is a gap in the teaching rather than anything about you.

You have been asking people to make a decision before they can find the question, and no buried sentence has ever once been dug up by somebody in a hurry. The written word offers the short form as a rest, and the Holy Spirit is the one who explains why the short ones come back and the long ones do not.

Only the question

Now the small thing, and it is a subtraction.

I am not going to help you write a better opening paragraph. A better opening paragraph is still an opening paragraph, and the opening paragraph is the whole difficulty.

Send one message that is only the question, with nothing above it and nothing below it.

You are able to send eight words on their own, and one bare question has never once been read as rudeness by anybody who loves you. Matthew 5:37 offers the plain form as the safe one, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a woman presses send on something short for the first time.

Write the question first, before anything else, so that there is nothing to delete.

Then read it back once, and if a hand goes toward the beginning to add something, stop, because that is the reflex and not a judgment.

And send it while it is still short. The window between writing it and improving it is about fifteen seconds, and everything that has gone wrong for the last two years has gone wrong in that window.

You are pressing send inside the fifteen seconds, and no short honest question has ever once made anybody think less of the person who asked it. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in the small gap where a person usually starts building, and it is written that whatever is more than yes and no comes out of something that was never right in the first place.