I Do Not Want To Be A Bother

The sentence is always the same. I do not want to be a bother.

And you say it lightly, and everybody around you reads it as good manners, and it has been quietly running your life for about thirty years.

Here is what it actually does. It removes you from every situation where you would have to need something from another person, which is most of the situations where a person gets work.

So the month is short, and there are eleven people you know who might need what you can do, and you have asked none of them, and the reason is not that you are shy. The reason is a rule you have never examined.

You are not an imposition, and asking somebody for work has never once been the same as taking something from them.

Let me put the rule in front of you properly, because I think when it is said out loud it will not survive.

The rule is: my need is a weight, and if I put it near somebody they will have to carry it.

And that would be true if you were asking them for money. You are not asking them for money.

You are asking them whether they need a thing done. That is not a weight. It is a question, and a question is a very small object.

A friend at midnight

Jesus tells a story about asking that is, frankly, embarrassing, and He tells it on purpose.

And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. (Luke 11:5, King James Version)

At midnight. Three loaves. A friend, banging on a door, in the dark, waking a whole household.

This is the most inconvenient possible version of an ask, and it is the one Jesus chooses as the illustration, which cannot be an accident.

You are being taught with an example that is deliberately more inconvenient than anything you would ever do, and a question asked in daylight has never once been the imposition that story describes. Luke 11:5 has a man at a door at midnight, and the Holy Spirit is the one who chose that example rather than a polite one.

And notice how the man asks. Friend, lend me three loaves.

No apology. No preamble. No paragraph explaining why he would not normally do this and that he completely understands if it is not possible.

You have an example in front of you of an ask with no apology attached to the front of it, and plainness has never once been rudeness in the mouth of somebody who needs something. The Holy Spirit is the one who left the apology out of that sentence, and it is written in Luke 11:5 as six plain words.

What the rule has cost other people

Now I want to turn this round, because the rule has a side that never gets looked at.

The rule has taken you out of other people's reach. Nobody gets to help you. Nobody gets the small pleasure of being useful to somebody they like, because the opportunity never once arises.

That is not kindness to them. That is a decision you made on their behalf about what they would want to do.

You are making other people's decisions for them in advance, and deciding that somebody would rather not be asked has never once been the same as asking them. The written word has a man who did wake the household and got his loaves, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a friendship run in two directions.

And there is a second cost, closer to home.

A person who never asks is also a person nobody can read. Your friends do not know the month is short. They think you are fine, because you have never once given them anything else to think.

You are surrounded by people who have not been told, and a life spent being no trouble has never once been the same as a life spent being known. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings a person out from behind their own good manners, and Luke 11:5 puts a friend at a door in the middle of the night without a word of criticism.

The question is small, and it is not about you

So the assignment, and I want to strip the size off it first.

Ask one person this week, out loud or in a message, if they need it done.

Notice the shape of that question. It is not, would you help me. It is not, I am struggling, could you.

It is: do you need this done. That question is about them and their week, and the honest answer is either yes or no, and neither answer costs them anything at all.

You are able to ask a question that is genuinely about the other person, and an offer of work has never once been the same thing as a request for charity. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a person a straight sentence, and the written word puts a plain request in a man's mouth at midnight without softening it.

And a rule for the wording, because you will break it otherwise.

No preamble. Do not begin with sorry, do not begin with I know you are busy, and do not end with but no worries at all if not. That last one is the one you will want most, and it is the one that tells the other person the question was not serious.

You are able to leave a question standing without an escape built into it, and a sentence with no apology around it has never once been aggressive. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person the nerve to stop talking, and it is written that the man at the door said six words and waited.