He Made The Approach And The Door Stayed Shut

He had been going to do it for a long time, and then in May he did it.

It was not a grand gesture. He is not a grand gesture kind of man. He sent something short and warm and specific, with nothing in it that could be read as pressure, and he read it four times before he sent it and then he sent it and then he went and stood outside for a while.

The reply came about a week later.

It was two lines. It was not cruel. It was not warm either. It acknowledged that he had made contact and it did not open anything, and there was nothing in it that could be taken hold of and continued.

He read it about thirty times over the following fortnight.

And here is where the months went. He started editing what he had sent, in his head, retrospectively. Should the second sentence have gone first. Was the word he used in the middle too casual, and did it make the whole thing sound lighter than he meant it. Should he have said less. Should he have said more, given how long it had been.

By July he had a slightly better version of the message he sent in May, and it is useless, and he knows it is useless, and he still composes it sometimes when he cannot sleep.

Underneath that there is a heavier thought, and it is this: I finally did the thing I was supposed to do, and it did not work, so either I did it badly, or it was never going to work, and if it was never going to work then what was the point of putting myself through it.

He has not become hard about it. He would still open the door tomorrow.

He has just started to feel like a man who tried, which is a specific and lonely thing to feel, and it sits somewhere between grief and embarrassment.

And you have made an approach too. You did the thing you had been asked to do, and what came back was short, or nothing at all, and you have been rewriting your own words ever since.

Paul put two conditions in front of it, and both of them protect you

There is a sentence about peacemaking that almost everybody quotes with the front half chopped off, and the front half is the mercy in it.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.Romans 12:18

Two qualifications, in eleven words, before the instruction arrives.

If possible. Which means it is sometimes not possible, and Paul, writing to people who were living in genuinely hostile situations, is not going to pretend otherwise.

So far as it depends on you. Which is the clause that has been missing from your last three months, because it draws a line down the middle of this and puts your name on one side of it only.

You are responsible for one half of a two person matter, and you have been carrying both halves since May. It is written, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all (Romans 12:18), and it is the Holy Spirit who lets a man set down the half that was never his without becoming careless about the half that was.

Now the rewriting, because that is where the months actually went.

Look at what you are doing when you compose the better version at two in the morning. You are looking for a mistake in your own wording that would explain the outcome, because a mistake would mean it was in your control, and something in a person would rather be at fault than be powerless.

That is not vanity. That is a man reaching for the only lever he can see.

You are not being punished for a word choice, and there is no sentence you could have written that would have obliged another person to open a door. Scripture says a soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1), which is wisdom about how to speak and never a guarantee about how it will be received, and it is His Spirit who gave you the softness that was already in what you sent in May.

And it was soft. That deserves saying. Short, warm, specific, no pressure in it, read four times before it went. That is not a man who fumbled an approach. That is a man who did it about as well as it can be done.

You did the thing well, and the outcome is not a report on the quality of it, because outcomes in this area have never been a report on anybody's quality. It is written that the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and it is the Holy Spirit who saw the four readings and the standing outside afterward, none of which appeared in the two line reply and all of which were seen.

Now the heavier thought, and it deserves a straight answer.

What was the point, if it was never going to work.

The point is that you were asked and you went. Obedience is not an investment with an expected return, and it is not rendered pointless by a two line reply, because the value of it was never located in the other person's response. Something was put right in you in May. A thing you had been carrying for years was set down, and it was set down whether or not it was picked up on the other side.

You are a man who has done his part, and that is finished and it stays finished regardless of what anybody else does with it. Scripture says as far as it depends on you (Romans 12:18), and it is the Holy Spirit who lets a man be genuinely at peace about a matter that is not resolved, which is one of the harder graces and it is available.