We Used To Read To Each Other

There are two lamps on that side of the room and only one of them gets used now.

For about eleven years one of you would read a bit out loud to the other most nights. Not the whole time, not formally. A paragraph, a page, whatever was good in what one of you happened to be holding, and then the other one would say something and it would go on from there.

It stopped roughly three years ago and neither of you has ever mentioned it. And now it is a thing that used to happen, which is a different category from a thing that is happening, and things in that category are difficult to move back.

And the strange part is the size of the ask. It would take four words. And the four words have felt impossible for about two years.

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.

What I want to look at is why four words got heavy, because they did, and the reason is not that anything is wrong.

They spake often one to another

There is a verse in Malachi 3 that records something very ordinary and then says what God did about it.

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. (Malachi 3:16, King James Version)

Read what they were doing.

They spake often one to another. That is the whole activity. Not preaching, not prophesying, not anything with a name. Talking, to each other, frequently.

And then look at the response. The LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written. Somebody wrote it down. Ordinary talk between people who feared Him was recorded in a book, which is what happens to things that matter.

You are looking at ordinary talk that got written into a book, and a page read out loud between two people has never once been a small thing. Malachi 3:16 records people speaking often one to another and has it written into a book of remembrance, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over two lamps with one of them off.

There is one word in there that is doing more than it looks like.

Often. Not once, not at a special moment, not on an occasion. Often, which is the quality of a thing that has become normal, and the verse treats the frequency as part of what was worth recording.

You have something that was worth recording because it was frequent, and eleven years of most nights have never once been a thing that stopped mattering. It is written and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, the ordinary frequency is what gets noticed and written down, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

Nobody mentioned it and that is what made it heavy

Here is the mechanism, and it is entirely about the three years.

The reading did not stop because anything went wrong. It stopped the way these things stop: a stretch of busyness, a few weeks of different bedtimes, and then the arrangement had lapsed and nobody noticed at the time.

Then it did not get mentioned. And this is the part that matters: every month it went unmentioned, the mentioning got slightly larger. Because a thing raised after three years is not a small request any more. It is a small request with three years of silence attached to it, and that is what has made four words heavy.

The weight is not in the ask. It is in the three years, and the three years are made of nothing at all.

You are carrying three years and not a request, and four words have never once been heavy on their own. Malachi 3:16 has the ordinary frequent talking recorded in a book, and the Holy Spirit is present with a woman looking at a lamp that is off.

And there is a second layer, and it deserves to be said kindly.

There has probably been a wondering about whether he stopped wanting it, and whether the ask would find that out. That is what has kept it unasked, and it is a real fear and it is not a foolish one.

Here is what is much more likely. He has not thought about it in about two and a half years, and if the page happened tonight he would settle back into it inside a paragraph, and he would not be able to tell you when it stopped either.

You have permission to find out without making it a conversation, and a lapsed arrangement has never once been the same thing as a change of heart. The written word records ordinary talk between people and has it written down, and His Spirit is the one who makes a small thing small again.

One page out loud tonight

So here is the assignment, and there is no ask in it at all.

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

Do not ask. That is the whole design. Do not say anything about whether the two of you should start doing this again, and do not raise the three years, and do not mention that you noticed.

Read a paragraph out loud, tonight, from whatever book is in your hand. Say listen to this, and then read it.

You are carrying a silence and not a request, and three years of nobody mentioning it have never once been a change of heart. The Holy Spirit is the one in that room with you, and Malachi 3:16 has the Lord hearken to ordinary talk and write it into a book of remembrance.

Here is why no ask.

The ask is the thing that got heavy, and heavy things do not get lighter by being approached carefully. They get bypassed. A paragraph read out loud is not a proposal about a practice; it is just a woman in a bed reading a good sentence to the person next to her, and nobody has to decide anything about it.

And it can be four sentences rather than a page. Nothing here has to be the old arrangement.

You are able to read four sentences out loud without asking for anything, and one paragraph has never once required a conversation first. Malachi 3:16 says then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a woman reading a paragraph out loud to her husband with no preamble at all.

And expect nothing in particular. He may say something and he may not, and either way the page happened and the three years have been crossed without a word being spent on them.

You have a lamp that goes back on without an announcement, and a small good thing has never once needed a negotiation to resume. It is written and a book of remembrance was written before him, ordinary frequent talk is what got recorded, and the Spirit of God is saying it in that bedroom tonight.