The Ask Is Two Sentences Long

The version in your head is about a paragraph and a half long.

It starts with a bit of context about why you are getting in touch. Then something about the situation at the moment, without going into detail. Then what you do, with a small qualification about the fact that you have not been doing it for very long. Then the actual question. Then a sentence saying that you completely understand if not.

And it has never been said, because a paragraph and a half is a thing a person has to work up to, and there has not been a moment yet that felt big enough to hold it.

You are carrying a speech where two sentences would do, and a longer explanation has never once made an answer more likely.

Here is what all the extra material is actually doing, and I want to say it kindly because the instinct behind it is a decent one.

Every one of those extra clauses is an apology in disguise. The context is an apology for getting in touch. The qualification is an apology for not being more experienced. The last line is an apology for having asked at all.

So the speech is not a request with some context around it. It is an apology with a request buried in the middle of it, and that is why it will not come out.

Let your communication be yea, yea

There is an instruction about speech in Matthew that is about oaths and is also, plainly, about length.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. (Matthew 5:37, King James Version)

Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.

That is the shortest recommendation about speaking anywhere in scripture. Say the thing. Do not build scaffolding around it.

You are given permission for something far shorter than the version in your head, and plainness has never once been the rude option in the mouth of somebody with something to say. Matthew 5:37 says let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the ceiling that low.

And the reason given is worth sitting with. For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

That sounds severe until you notice what the extra material in an oath was for. It was for shoring something up that the speaker did not trust to stand on its own.

You have been shoring up a sentence that would stand perfectly well by itself, and extra words have never once made a true thing more true. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person the nerve to let a sentence stand, and it is written in Matthew 5:37 that what goes beyond the plain thing is doing something else.

Cut it down on paper

So here is the work, and it is done with a pencil and it takes about six minutes.

Write out the whole speech. The full version, all of it, exactly as it runs in your head at two in the morning.

Then cross out every sentence whose job is to manage how you will be perceived.

The context goes. The qualification about experience goes. The line about completely understanding if not goes, and that one will hurt to lose.

You are able to take a pencil to something that has been running unedited in your head for weeks, and a paragraph on a table has never once been as large as the same paragraph in the dark. The written word cuts speech down to a plain yes and a plain no, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a person permission to strike a line out.

What is left is two sentences. It will look far too short. That feeling is not information.

You have two sentences that will look far too short on the page, and a short question has never once been the reason somebody did not need a thing done. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a person from putting it all back, and Matthew 5:37 gives a ceiling on speech rather than a floor.

What the two sentences are

Let me be exact about the shape without handing you a script, because a script would be a method and this site does not deal in methods.

The first sentence says what you do, in the ordinary words you would use to your sister.

The second sentence asks whether they need it done.

That is it. No third sentence. In particular, no sentence at the end that gives them a way out, because they already have one, and building it for them tells them the question was not serious.

You are able to stop after two, and a question left standing has never once been pressure. The Spirit of God is the one who is with a person in the pause after they have finished speaking, and the written word puts the ceiling at yea, yea and nay, nay.

And a note about the silence afterward, since that is where most of these get ruined.

There will be a gap. In a message it is the wait. In person it is about four seconds. Do not fill it. Whatever comes into the gap from your mouth will be one of the sentences you just crossed out.

You are able to be quiet for four seconds, and a silence after an honest question has never once been an awkwardness a person needed to rescue. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds a person still, and it is written that anything past the plain word is doing work the plain word did not need.