Two States Away On The Phone

You have been meaning to ask for about four months and the thing that stops you is the signal.

Not really the signal. The signal is what you say to yourself. What actually stops you is a picture of how it would go: a phone propped against something, a bad line, a six year old who gets bored in ninety seconds, and a grandfather reading into a room he cannot see.

And measured against how it used to be, with her on your knee and the book flat on the arm of the chair, that version looks like a poor copy. So the ask never gets made, and it has been four months, and she is six and she is not going to be six for long.

Two things are not coming here, and you have met them both.

Nobody is handing you a list. Not a title, not an author, not a genre, and no shelf of what anybody ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book.

And nobody is saying one word about your phone. You know about the phone. Everybody knows. Being told again by a stranger returns nothing at all, and there is nothing coming here about screens.

What I want to look at is the comparison, because you are measuring a real option against an unavailable one.

Scripture has a man who would rather have said it in person, and who sent the letter anyway, and the letter is what we have.

Face to face is not the only way

There is a note at the end of the third letter of John where the writer says plainly that he would rather be doing this differently.

I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee: I trust I shall shortly come unto thee, and we shall speak face to face. (3 John 1:13-14, King James Version)

Read what he admits.

He would rather come. He says so, in writing, without pretending the letter is as good. Face to face is named as the better thing and the preference is stated openly.

And then look at what he does. He writes the letter anyway. He sends it. It goes six hundred miles or however far it went, in ink and pen, to a person he would rather have been sitting with, and it is in your Bible.

So the man who preferred face to face also used the lesser medium, on purpose, and neither of those facts cancels the other.

You are allowed the lesser medium, and a phone six hundred miles away has never once been a disqualification. 3 John 1:14 has the writer name face to face as better and send the letter anyway in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over a porch in the late afternoon.

There is one more thing worth having in it.

I had many things to write. He is not sending everything. The letter is a fraction of what he would have said in person, and he sends the fraction rather than waiting until the whole could be delivered properly.

You have a fraction that is worth sending, and one page down a bad line has never once had to be the whole of what you wanted to give her. It is written I had many things to write, the fraction gets sent rather than held back, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

The comparison is against something unavailable

Here is the mechanism, and it is a comparison problem.

The phone is being measured against her on your knee.

That is the whole of it. The version in your head is the good version: the weight of her, the book on the arm of the chair, the page turned by a small hand. And the phone version loses that comparison badly, and it loses it every time you run it, and so the ask never gets made.

But her on your knee is not available. It is six hundred miles away and it happens twice a year. So the actual choice is not between the phone and the chair. It is between the phone and nothing, and the phone wins that comparison by a distance that is hard to overstate.

You are choosing between a phone and nothing at all, and a bad line has never once been in competition with a chair you cannot reach. 3 John 1:14 names the better thing and sends the lesser one regardless, and the Holy Spirit is present with a man who has been comparing a real option to an unavailable one for four months.

And there is a second layer, and it is the one that would actually surprise you.

All of this has been about what she gets. So consider what it does for her that a grandfather two states away reads her a page on a Tuesday. Not the page. The fact of it. A person who is not there, who is nonetheless there, on a schedule, for something that is only for her.

Children remember the arrangement long after the content is gone. That is what she would be getting, and it does not require a good signal.

You have something to give her that a bad line cannot damage, and ninety seconds of attention from two states away has never once been a poor copy of anything. The written word has a man send a fraction of what he wanted to say rather than hold it until it could be said properly, and His Spirit is the one who takes an unavailable standard off a man.

One page out loud tonight

So here is the assignment, and it starts closer to home than the phone call.

Read one page out loud to somebody in your house tonight.

Whoever is there. Your wife, a neighbor who has come round, whoever is in the kitchen. One page, out loud, from whatever you happen to be reading.

Here is why the house first and the ask second.

You are allowed the lesser medium, and six hundred miles have never once disqualified a grandfather. The Holy Spirit is the one on that porch with you, and 3 John 1:14 has a man name face to face as the better thing and send the letter in ink and pen anyway.

The thing being avoided here is not the technology. It is the sound of your own voice reading to somebody who has not asked for it. One page out loud in your own kitchen puts that entirely to rest in about ninety seconds, and it takes the whole weight out of the phone call.

Then ask. This week. A page on a Tuesday, one page, and say it as a small thing rather than a proposal, because a small thing gets a yes and a proposal gets considered.

You are able to read one page out loud in your own kitchen tonight, and ninety seconds of your own voice has never once been a thing to be afraid of. 3 John 1:14 says I trust I shall shortly come unto thee, and we shall speak face to face, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a man reading a page out loud to whoever is in the room.

And when the call happens, expect it to be slightly awkward and to last four minutes. That is what it is, and four minutes on a Tuesday is not the poor version of anything.

You have a fraction worth sending across six hundred miles, and the better thing being unavailable has never once made the available thing a copy. It is written but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee, and then he writes anyway and the writing is what came down to us, and the Spirit of God is saying it on a porch today.