It Feels Too Small To Tell Anyone

Something good happened and you have told nobody.

Not because you are private. You are not especially private and you tell people things. This one has been specifically held back, and there was a moment where you nearly said it and did not.

It was at the table on Sunday. Somebody asked what you had been up to, in the general way, and you had the sentence ready and you let it go past.

You are allowed to tell somebody, and a good thing has never once had to reach a size before it was worth saying out loud.

And the reason you gave yourself, in that half second, was that it is not worth anybody's time.

That there are people at that table with actual things going on, and that offering a green shoot in a pot as your contribution would be taking up room with something that does not warrant it.

Now, I want to look at that reason, because it sounds like consideration for other people and I do not think it is.

If it were consideration, it would apply to everybody. And it does not. You are perfectly happy to hear about somebody else's small thing and you would not think for a second that they were taking up room with it.

The rule is being applied to one person only.

Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece

There is a parable in Luke about a woman and a coin, and the ending of it is the part that gets skipped.

And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. (Luke 15:9, King James Version)

She calls her friends and her neighbors together.

Now, consider the scale of what has happened. She has found a coin. One coin, of ten, in her own house, where it had been the whole time.

And she gathers people.

You are looking at somebody assembling an audience over a single coin, and Scripture has never once suggested that the occasion was too small for the gathering. Luke 15:9 has friends and neighbors called together over one recovered piece, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman who let a sentence go past at a table.

And notice that Jesus is the one telling it. He constructs this parable, with this woman in it, doing this, and the whole point of the story depends on her response being right rather than excessive.

Nobody in the parable says that she is making rather a lot of one coin.

You are not the first to be moved out of proportion to an object, and a gathering over something small has never once been corrected by anybody in that chapter. The Holy Spirit is the one who told the story in that shape, and the written word has her calling people together without one qualifying word attached.

And notice what she actually says. Rejoice with me.

Not: something small has happened, sorry to bother you. Not: this is not much but. She says rejoice with me, which is an invitation issued at full strength.

You are able to invite somebody into a good thing at its real size, and a plain invitation has never once required an apology in front of it. The Spirit of God is the one who put those three words in her mouth, and the word records no hedge anywhere in the sentence.

Nobody is short of room

Let me deal with the consideration reason properly, because it will not survive being looked at.

The decision underneath it is that other people have a limited capacity and that this would use some of it.

But look at what actually happens at a table when somebody says a small good thing. It takes eleven seconds. Somebody says oh, that is nice. Somebody else says something about their own. And the conversation moves.

You are not proposing to take the evening. You are proposing to take eleven seconds, and the table has plenty of those.

You are budgeting for something that has never once cost what you are budgeting, and eleven seconds at a table has never been a demand on anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings a cost back to its real size, and Luke 15:9 has a whole gathering called for something considerably smaller than an evening.

And there is a second thing that I think is the real one, underneath the consideration.

If you say it and the response is small, you will have learned something about how much it is worth. And at the moment, while it is unsaid, it can stay whatever size it is in you.

That is not consideration for the table. That is protection of the thing, and it is very understandable, and it is also why you have been sitting on something good for a two weeks on your own.

You are protecting a good thing rather than sparing anybody, and a thing kept in to preserve its size has never once been kept for the reason its owner gave. The Spirit of God is the one who knows which reason is operating, and the written word has a woman naming her own gladness out loud with nothing held back.

Tell one person, and use the word pleased

So here is the assignment, and the word is specified on purpose.

Tell one person, and use the word pleased.

One person. Not the table. Somebody easy, on the phone or in a kitchen, and say the thing and use that word about yourself.

I am pleased about it. Or: it came up and I was really pleased.

You are able to say a plain sentence about your own gladness, and one true word about how a thing landed has never once been too much to say. Luke 15:9 has a woman saying rejoice with me out loud, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing there while somebody uses a word about themselves.

The word matters and here is why.

You can report a fact without saying anything about yourself. Something came up. That is a fact and it is safe, and it lets the other person respond to a fact.

Pleased is different. Pleased puts you in the sentence, and it tells the other person what it is worth to you rather than leaving them to guess, and it removes the possibility of them accidentally responding smaller than you feel because they did not know.

You are able to put yourself into your own good news, and naming what a thing is worth to you has never once been a burden on the person hearing it. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person their own voice for a glad thing, and the word records rejoice with me rather than a report about a coin.

And do not add anything after it. No small laugh. No it is silly really.