You have spoken to them eleven times today and not one of those was a conversation.
The dentist. Whether the thing on Thursday is still happening. Who is picking up. A message about a parcel. A short exchange in a doorway about a person neither of you likes very much. And then the last one, at about half nine, which was about tomorrow.
Eleven contacts. Nothing said.
And it is not a bad marriage. That is the strange part and the reason you have never raised it. There is no crisis, nobody is unkind, the household runs, and if somebody asked you how things were you would say fine and you would not be lying.
Two things I am not going to do.
I am not going to give you a communication technique. No structure, no reflective listening, nothing where you take turns holding something. All of that is visible from the other side of a kitchen table, and a person who can see they are being run through a method stops being able to answer honestly.
And I am not going to give you a list of questions to work through. There are decks of those. What happens with a list is that you get an interview instead of a conversation and both of you feel it by question three.
One question. Tonight. That is the whole thing.
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water
There is a proverb about what is inside a person, and it makes two claims that are both worth having.
Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Proverbs 20:5, King James Version)
Like deep water. But a man of understanding will draw it out.
The first claim is that there is something there. Deep water, in the person sitting three feet away from you, who this evening said nine words about a parcel. Whatever has happened to your conversations has not drained the well.
The second claim is that it does not come up on its own. Water at that depth requires drawing. Nobody at the top of a well stands there hoping.
And notice it is one person's action. It does not say two people of understanding, and it does not require the other person to cooperate in any particular way. Somebody lowers something down.
Proverbs 20:5 says the depth is there and that it needs drawing rather than waiting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that reach somebody at half nine at night.
You are living beside deep water, and eleven exchanges about arrangements have never once meant the well was empty. Proverbs 20:5 says counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns that from a nice thought into something a person does tonight.
Nothing has gone wrong
Now something that will take some weight off, because I suspect you have been quietly treating this as evidence.
Nothing has gone wrong. Two people running a household together will produce logistics conversation in enormous quantities, because there is a genuinely large amount to arrange and it all has deadlines and consequences. That is not a symptom of drift; it is what the arrangement generates. Proverbs 20:5 describes depth waiting rather than depth lost, and the Holy Spirit is not diagnosing anything in that house.
What happens is not that the other kind of conversation gets crowded out deliberately. It just never quite gets started, because starting it requires somebody to ask a question with no operational purpose, and neither of you has done that in about two years, and now it would feel slightly odd.
Proverbs 20:5 does not describe a well that has failed, and the Holy Spirit is not diagnosing a marriage here.
The oddness is the whole obstacle. It is not distance, it is not indifference and it is not a problem with your marriage. It is that the first non-logistical question in two years is going to feel strange to ask, and it is going to feel strange for about nine seconds.
You are not looking at a failing thing, and the absence of that conversation has never once been evidence of anything. The written word describes depth waiting rather than a well run dry, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a diagnosis off a person who was only ever short of one question.
One question, and the whole answer
So here is the assignment, and both halves are difficult in different ways.
Ask them one question tonight that has nothing to do with the week. And listen to the whole answer.
Nothing to do with the week means it cannot be answered with a plan. Not what are we doing about Saturday. Something like: what was the best part of your day. What do you think about that thing your brother said. If you could stop doing one thing entirely, what would it be. When did you last laugh at something.
Ask it in an ordinary moment, not sat down, because sat down turns it into a summit.
And listen to the whole answer. Do not solve anything. Do not connect it to a plan. Do not answer it yourself immediately afterwards, which is what most people do and which converts an answer into an exchange of positions.
If they answer badly, or briefly, or say I do not know: that is fine, and the assignment is complete. The asking was the thing. Proverbs 20:5 puts the drawing in the hands of the one who draws rather than in the water's cooperation, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a question asked without a guarantee of what comes back.
You are able to lower something down without knowing what comes up, and the asking has never once depended on the answer. Proverbs 20:5 puts the action with the one who draws, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in a kitchen when a question with no purpose gets asked.
So here is what I believe is going out over somebody today.
You are not drifting, and eleven logistical exchanges have never once been a report on your marriage. I am not handing you a technique and I am not handing you a list. Proverbs 20:5 says the counsel in a person's heart is like deep water, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my telling who turns that into one question at half nine at night.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You are able to draw it out, and the depth has always been there waiting for somebody to lower something down. The written word says a man of understanding will draw it out, putting the action entirely with the one who draws, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody asking the first strange question in two years.
One question. Nothing to do with the week.
Declare this over yourself
- Assumption that eleven conversations about arrangements means we have drifted, you are not evidence. Proverbs 20:5 says counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, so by the Holy Spirit you do not get another two years in the name of Jesus.
- Strangeness of asking the first question in two years that has no purpose in it, you last about nine seconds. The word puts the drawing with the one who draws rather than with the water, and by the Holy Spirit I am done waiting for a conversation to start itself.
- Father, You said the depth is there and that somebody has to draw it. Your word says a man of understanding will draw it out, so by Your Spirit I ask one question tonight, and I listen to the whole answer.
Proverbs 20:5
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