They Are Struggling Too

You have built a whole case for them.

They are probably having a hard time. Things have been difficult there. Somebody mentioned something. And if they had it, they would have paid, so the fact that they have not means they do not have it.

And every piece of that might be true. I am not going to stand here and tell you they are fine and you are being taken advantage of, because I do not know them and neither, when you look at it honestly, do you.

You are allowed to ask a struggling person for what they owe you, and compassion has never once required a person to go without.

Here is the thing I would like to point at, gently.

Almost all of that case was constructed by you. Not one piece of it came from them. They have not told you they are struggling. They have not asked for more time. They have not said anything at all, which is the actual situation.

So you have written their side of the conversation for them, sympathetically, and then acted on it as though it had been said.

And in the meantime you are the one going without, and nobody constructed a case for you.

Owe no man any thing

There is a verse in Romans that is usually quoted about avoiding debt and has a second half people skip.

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8, King James Version)

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another.

The instruction there is aimed at the person who owes. Settle what you owe. Keep nothing outstanding except the love, which is the one thing that is never paid off.

You are on the side of that verse that is owed rather than the side being instructed, and asking somebody to settle what they owe has never once been the thing that verse warns against. Romans 13:8 says owe no man any thing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who aimed that sentence at the debtor rather than at the person waiting.

And the second half is what makes it usable for you. But to love one another.

Love is named as the thing that continues. It is not named as a replacement for settling the account. Both are in the same sentence and neither one cancels the other.

You have both available at once, and loving somebody has never once meant not mentioning what is owed. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds those two together, and it is written in Romans 13:8 in a single line with both halves standing.

The kindest thing is usually the plain thing

Let me say something about silence, because it has been read as a message and it is almost never a message.

A person who owes money and cannot pay it usually goes quiet. Not out of contempt. Out of shame, and out of not knowing what to say when the answer is I still cannot.

So the silence that has been read as difficulty may well be exactly that. And here is the part that matters: it is not relieved by your silence. It is made worse by it.

Because now there are two people not mentioning a thing, and every week that passes makes it larger for both of them.

You are in a silence that two people are maintaining, and a subject nobody has raised has never once got smaller by being left alone. The written word puts the settling and the loving in one sentence, and the Spirit of God is the one who gets a thing said out loud so that it stops growing.

And consider what a plain message actually does for them, which is the thing you have not weighed.

It ends the dread. It gives them something to answer. It lets them say, I cannot do it all this month, can I do part of it, which is a sentence that is currently impossible for them to say because nobody has opened the subject.

You are able to give somebody a way to speak, and one plain question has never once been a crueler thing than three weeks of unbroken quiet. The Holy Spirit is the one who opens a conversation neither person could open, and Romans 13:8 keeps the love running alongside the settling rather than instead of it.

One plain sentence, today

So the assignment, and there is a piece of wording in it that is yours specifically.

Send the message asking for it, today, in one plain sentence.

The work, the date, and the ask. One line, no paragraph.

You are able to write one line today, and a short plain message has never once been the harsh version of a conversation. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a message like that, and the written word puts the owing and the loving in the same breath.

And here is your wording, because the case you have built will want to get into the message and soften it into nothing.

Do not write, I know things are hard. Do not write, whenever you can. Do not write, no pressure at all.

Every one of those is your case for them, and putting it in the message tells them the question does not need answering.

You are able to leave your own excuses for them out of your own sentence, and a plain ask has never once been unkind in the hands of somebody who intends to stay kind afterward. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps the love and the asking in the same person, and it is written in Romans 13:8 that both stand in one line.

And if they answer and say they genuinely cannot, then you will know, from them, for the first time. And then you can be generous on purpose, which is a decision, rather than by default, which is what has been happening.