She has had the speech ready for nine years.
She could give it to you now, standing at a sink, without notes. She has revised it. There was a version at three years that was too angry, and a version at five that made too many excuses, and the one she carries now is fair to everybody and takes about two minutes.
It is a good speech. That is not the trouble.
The trouble is that in nine years she has never been in a room where she could say it, and the longer it has been carried the longer it has grown, and the longer it has grown the bigger the room would have to be.
At three years it was an apology. At nine years it is a case.
And because she cannot imagine saying two minutes of it, she has never said nine seconds of it either. The size of the speech has become the reason for the silence.
She has told God the substance, more or less, several times. In the same careful order. In the same complete way. Which is, if she is honest, the speech again, delivered to a ceiling.
So let me ask you.
How long is the speech you have been carrying?
He got about half of it out
There is a young man on a road in Luke with a speech, and he worked it out while he was still feeding pigs, and Luke gives us the whole draft.
Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.
Three parts. The confession, the verdict on himself, and the proposal for what he should be demoted to. He has clearly gone over it, the way you do.
And then he comes over the hill, and his father runs, and he starts.
The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.Luke 15:21
Stop there and count what is missing.
The third part. The proposal. The bit about the hired servants, which he had definitely prepared because Luke wrote it down two paragraphs earlier, never gets said.
Luke 15 lets the boy get through the honest half and cuts him off before the bargaining, and the Spirit who moved Luke to record both the draft and the delivery left the difference visible on purpose, so what you have prepared has never been the price of getting home.
The father is not listening for a complete account. He is already talking to the servants about a robe.
Now, plainly, the way we say things on a porch.
I am not going to tell you the speech was wrong to make. He was right about what he had done and the first half of that speech is true, and he said it, and it mattered that he said it out loud to a face.
But he did not have to finish, and he did not have to be eloquent, and the shape of the thing was decided before he opened his mouth.
Luke 15 has a father interrupting a prepared apology to send for clothes, and the Spirit has never once required a person to complete a case before being met, which means nine years of drafting has been protecting you from a nine second sentence.
Now the turn, and it is not about getting the words right.
Say the first line only.
That is the whole instruction. Not the case, not the context, not the fair-to-everybody version you have spent nine years balancing. The first line, which in the boy's speech was the true one, and which took him about four seconds. Luke 15 has the father interrupting before the prepared remainder ever arrives, and the Spirit left the unfinished speech standing in the record, so you are carrying nine years of a balance nobody asked you to strike.
You have been waiting for a room big enough for two minutes. Nine seconds fits almost anywhere.
Luke 15 shows a father interrupting before the bargaining and calling for a robe, and the Spirit was already moving in that father before the son had finished a sentence, so the completeness of your account has never been what opens anything.
Say the true half. The rest was for you, not for Him.
Declare this over yourself
Say these where you can hear yourself. Know what holds them up. This authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King. And you speak under His will, never over it. However He answers, and in whatever way He comes, the outcome is His.
- Speech, you are rehearsed and fair to everybody and you were never required. Luke 15 records the whole draft and then lets the boy get through two parts of three before the father sends for a robe.
- Size that has become my reason for silence, you grew every year I carried you, and in the name of Jesus you are cut down to one line. The Spirit was already moving in that father while the son was still coming over the hill.
- Lord, Luke 15 leaves out the part about the hired servants on purpose, so the bargaining was never wanted. I am saying the first line only tonight, to one person or to an empty kitchen, and I am stopping there.
Luke 15:21
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