I Do Not Know If I Would Say It Again

If somebody put the question to you today you would not have a clean answer.

Not because you want out. That is not what this is, and if it were you would know it. It is that you now know things you did not know then. You know what the years actually cost. You know how much of it is ordinary. You know what neither of you turned out to be.

And a promise made by somebody who knew all of that would be a different promise from the one you made, and you are not certain you could make it in the same words with the same face.

This is the last article on this site and it is going to be careful, because there is a version of this piece that is pressure, and pressure is the last thing that should be applied to anybody standing where you are standing.

So let me say it now rather than at the end. If you cannot say it today, you have not failed at anything. Not the marriage, not your faith, not this article. A person who cannot say it wholeheartedly and is honest about that is in a better position than a person who says it smoothly and means about a third of it.

And there is nothing here about a ceremony, an event, a service, a renewal weekend or telling anybody. Nothing in this article involves another person at all.

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief

There is a sentence in Mark said by a father in a desperate situation, and it is one of the strangest and best prayers in the Bible.

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. (Mark 9:24, King James Version)

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

It is a contradiction and he says it anyway. He does not resolve it before he speaks. He does not go away and work on it and come back when he can say the first half cleanly.

He brings what he actually has, which is a mixture, and he names both parts of it in one breath, and Jesus does not correct the sentence or ask him to try again.

That is the model for what I am about to ask you to do, and it is the reason I did not choose a verse about keeping your word. What is on offer here is not a demand for wholeheartedness. It is permission to say a true thing that has a gap in it.

Mark 9:24 has a man speak the mixture rather than resolve it first, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that reach somebody who has been silent because they could not say it cleanly.

You are able to say what you actually have, and it has never once needed to be whole before it could be spoken. Mark 9:24 says Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief, spoken as a contradiction and left uncorrected, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an honest half a real thing to say.

Today's knowledge belongs in it

Now something I think will change how this feels.

You have been treating your knowledge as the disqualifier. You know too much now. You have seen the ordinary years, the things neither of you fixed, the parts of them that are not going to change, and you assume that a promise made in full knowledge of all that is a lesser thing than one made at twenty-four in a room full of flowers.

Mark 9:24 has a man speak out of what he had actually been through rather than out of what he wished he still believed, and the Holy Spirit is not asking anybody to forget what they have learned.

It is the other way round. A promise made with the knowledge in it is worth more than one made without, because the one made at twenty-four was made by somebody who did not know what they were agreeing to, and yours would not be.

That is not a smaller sentence. It is a heavier one, said by somebody who has read the terms.

You are able to say it with the knowledge in it, and what you now know has never once made it a lesser promise. The written word has a man speak out of the middle of what he had actually seen, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes experience an ingredient rather than a disqualification.

One sentence, with today in it

So here is the assignment, and it is the last one on this site.

Say one sentence of it again, out loud, to God, with today's knowledge in it.

One sentence. Not the whole of it, and not the words from the day.

And put today into it. That is the instruction, and Mark 9:24 is the pattern for it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who receives a sentence with a gap in it. Something like: knowing what I know now, I am still here. Or: I do not know if I could say all of it, and I can say that I am not leaving. Or, if that is more than you have: I want to be able to say it, and I cannot today, and I am telling You that instead.

That last one is a complete assignment. Mark 9:24 is exactly that sentence and it was received without a word of correction.

Out loud, alone, to God. Not to your spouse. Not written down. Nobody knows this happened.

And if you cannot say any of the three, then say nothing today, and that is allowed too, and this article does not follow you around about it.

Mark 9:24 has the honest half spoken with tears and answered without correction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody says the version they actually have.

You are able to say the part that is true today, and it has never once had to be the whole of it. Mark 9:24 receives a contradiction without correcting it, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody saying an honest sentence rather than a smooth one.