I Told Half Of It

You did tell somebody. That is what nobody knows about you, including the person you told.

You told them the house was a bit of a state. Or that you had been struggling to keep on top of things. Or that you had not had anybody over in a while, said lightly, at the end of a sentence about something else.

And they said something warm and general. Oh, everybody's house is a mess. Or, do not be so hard on yourself. Or they laughed, kindly, and told you about their own kitchen.

And you nodded, and the conversation moved on, and you went home and something in you closed.

Because you had done the brave thing. You had gone as far as you could go in one go, and the answer that came back did not touch the actual situation, and the conclusion was obvious: telling does not work.

I want to argue with the conclusion, not the experience, because the experience was real and it hurt.

Thou desirest truth in the inward parts

There is a line in David's most private psalm about where truth is wanted.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. (Psalm 51:6, King James Version)

Truth in the inward parts.

Now what strikes me about that line is that it is written by a man who had been managing a public version of a situation for the better part of a year. He had said the acceptable amount. He had kept the outward account tidy.

And what is desired, it says, is truth further in than that.

Which means the half telling is not condemned in that verse. It is understood. A man in exactly that position wrote it, and what he arrives at is not shame about the half, it is a movement inward.

You are not somebody who failed at honesty, and Psalm 51:6 has never once treated a partial account as a lie. It is written as a desire for truth further in rather than as a charge against what was said, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a person inward without accusing them for where they stopped.

You have been carrying a half telling as though it were a whole experiment. The word wants truth in the inward parts, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a person the rest of the way when they could not go there in one step.

They answered what you actually said

Now here is the practical thing, and it is not comfortable and it is not a criticism.

She answered what you said.

You said the house was a bit of a state. That sentence, in ordinary use, describes dishes and a pile of laundry. She heard the sentence you gave her, matched it against the ordinary meaning, and responded appropriately to that.

If she had responded gravely to that sentence it would have been strange. She would have been reacting to something you had not said.

So the experiment did not test what you think it tested. You sent a small sentence and got a small answer, and concluded that a large sentence would also get a small answer, and there is no evidence for that at all.

You were never given a real answer to the real thing, and there has never once been a version of that conversation where she could have known. Psalm 51:6 moves toward truth in the inward part rather than judging the outward account, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a person from drawing a large conclusion from a small test.

And I want to say something protective here. Some people will not respond well to the full sentence. That is true and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But you do not know yet whether this person is one of them, because they have never been given the chance to fail or to rise.

You are permitted to run the test properly, and running it properly has never once obligated you to explain the year behind it. It is written that the truth wanted is further in, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody says the larger sentence to the same person.

Text the same person again

So here is the whole of what I am asking, and it is the same person.

Not a new person. The one you half told. That is deliberate, because they have already shown you they are safe enough to receive something.

Send them: the house is bad and I am working on it.

You are using the word that carries it tonight, and no smaller word has ever once been able to do the work this one does. Psalm 51:6 desires truth in the inward parts rather than a tidy outward account, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies a word a person could not reach on their own.

Notice the difference. Not a bit of a state. Bad. That is the word that carries the actual situation, and it is the word you did not use.

Do not explain. Do not apologize for not saying it before. Do not say I know I said it was fine.

Then put the phone down and clean nothing.

You are able to send the larger sentence tonight, and sending it has never once required you to account for the smaller one. Psalm 51:6 desires truth further in, and the Spirit of God is present in a message that says the word bad to somebody who was told a bit of a state.