I Do Not Know What To Call Myself

The moment comes and your mouth stops.

Somebody says, so what do you do, and there is a half second where a title is supposed to arrive, and none does, and in that half second something in you decides that the honest answer is nothing.

So you say, oh, a bit of this and that. Or you name the job you had four years ago. Or you make a joke.

And then you go home and think about it in the car.

Let me put something to you that I think has been sitting underneath this for years.

You have been waiting to be given a word. A word that somebody official would hand over, that would make the thing you do legitimate, and that could be said in one breath at a party.

That word is not coming. Not because you do not deserve it, but because for a great deal of real work in the world there is no such word, and the people doing that work simply describe it instead.

You are allowed to describe the work instead of naming a profession, and a job without a title has never once been a job that does not exist.

And the practical cost of the waiting is the thing that brings you to a page like this one. Every conversation where you could not name it was a conversation where nobody found out what you could do.

Wherewith shall I save Israel

There is a moment in Judges where a man is given a job and answers it with a list of reasons he is the wrong person for it.

And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. (Judges 6:15, King James Version)

Wherewith shall I save Israel.

That is a man asking, with what. With what standing, with what authority, with what credentials. It is the same question as yours, asked in older words.

You are asking a question that scripture records without a word of reproach, and wondering what right you have to say a thing has never once been treated there as a failure of nerve. Judges 6:15 says wherewith shall I save Israel, and the Holy Spirit is the one who kept the question in the account.

And look at the answer he gets, which is not an argument about his family or his standing.

Surely I will be with thee. That is the credential offered. Not a title, not a rank, not a certificate. A presence.

You have been offered something other than a word to put in front of your name, and being accompanied has never once been a weaker qualification than being given a label. The Holy Spirit is the one who goes with a person into a conversation, and it is written in Judges 6 that the answer to a question about credentials was about company.

Nobody is asking for a title

Now the practical part, and I think it will be a relief.

When somebody asks what you do, they are not asking for a job title. They think they are, because that is the shape of the question, but what they actually want is to know what happens when you turn up.

Watch what happens when somebody gives a title. Half the time the next question is, what does that actually mean.

So skip a step. Say what happens.

You are able to answer the real question instead of the one that was asked, and describing the work has never once left a person more confused than a title would. The written word answers a man's question about standing with a promise of presence, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves a person past the missing word.

And here is the shape of it. Two clauses.

What you do, and who it is for. I sort out people's paperwork when it has got out of hand. I look after older people on the days their families cannot. I clean houses after somebody has moved out.

That is a complete answer. It has no title in it anywhere and nobody will notice.

You are able to say two clauses out loud, and a sentence without a profession in it has never once sounded like an apology. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person plain words, and Judges 6:15 has a man describing his own situation in plain terms rather than reaching for a rank.

The freeze is a habit, not a fact

One more thing, and then the assignment.

The half second freeze is not a permanent feature of you. It is a groove worn by about four hundred repetitions of the same moment going badly.

Grooves get worn in and they can be worn out, and the way that happens is not confidence arriving first. It is the sentence being said, badly, a few times, until it stops being new.

You are not waiting on a feeling before the sentence can be said, and a mouth that has never said a thing has never once been a mouth that cannot. The Spirit of God is the one who is with a person in the saying rather than before it, and the written word promises presence rather than a change of heart.

So say it somewhere safe first. In the car. To a friend who already knows what you do, who will find it strange and who will say so, and that is fine.

You are able to practice a sentence out loud before it matters, and rehearsing a true thing has never once made it less true. The Holy Spirit is the one who is in the car with a woman talking to nobody, and it is written that a man was sent in the strength he had, with company, and not in a title.