You have thought about it more than once and every time the scale of it has stopped you.
Because in your head, saying it again means saying it. The whole thing. All the clauses, in order, with the weight of each one considered, and something in the middle about the years, and a proper ending.
That is a twenty minute undertaking. Nobody has twenty minutes of that in them on a Tuesday, and so it has never happened, and you have concluded from the not happening that you must not want to badly enough.
You want to. It is the size that has stopped you, and the size was never necessary.
Before anything else: if you cannot say it today, you are not failing at anything. There is no pressure anywhere on this page and there never will be. Some people arrive on a day when nothing will come out and that day is a real one and it is not a ruling on anybody.
Let your yea be yea
There is an instruction in Matthew about the size of speech, and the whole point of it is that small is better.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay (Matthew 5:37, King James Version)
Yea, yea. That is the recommended form, and it is two words, and the passage around it is specifically about swearing and oaths and the elaborate constructions people build to make a promise sound more binding.
What it says is that the elaboration adds nothing. A plain yes from a person who means it carries everything an oath was trying to carry.
You are able to say a very small thing and have it be complete, and Matthew 5 has never once made length a measure of a promise. Matthew 5:37 recommends two words over an elaborate construction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the scale of the task out of a person's way.
That is aimed almost exactly at your problem. You have been building a twenty minute construction because you thought a bigger structure would carry more weight, and the passage says the opposite about a promise.
You have been trying to do something the text recommends against, and no verse has ever once asked for the whole speech. The passage puts the recommended form at two words, and the Spirit of God is the one who receives the smallest possible version as the whole thing.
Small is not a reduction
Let me say something about the smallness, because you will otherwise treat the short version as a compromise.
A short sentence is not a partial promise. When somebody says yes and means it, nothing about that yes is provisional because it was brief.
And there is something else that is true of speech under pressure. Long constructions are what people build when they are trying to convince somebody, including themselves. Short ones are what people say when the thing is simply true.
So the short version is not the version you can manage. It is the more honest of the two, and it is the one that would come out of you if you were not planning.
You are able to say the truer version by saying the shorter one, and the brevity has never once made it partial. Matthew 5:37 puts the whole weight on a plain yes, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a short sentence carry a twenty year promise.
You made a vow years ago and you have kept it in ordinary sized moments, and the saying of it again has never once needed to be larger than the keeping was. It is written that our communication is to be yea, yea, and the Spirit of God is the one who receives one sentence as the whole thing.
One sentence, and that is all of it
Here is the assignment and the whole point of it is that it is small.
Say one sentence of it again, out loud, to God, with today's knowledge in it.
One. Not the clauses. Not the years. Not a proper ending. One sentence, and then stop, and then get on with the evening.
You are able to finish a year of planning in eight seconds, and Matthew 5 has never once made length the measure of a promise. Matthew 5:37 recommends two words over an elaborate construction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present while somebody says one line at a bookcase.
Something like: I said I would be here, and I am here, and I say it again today.
Out loud, alone. Not to them, not as an event, and nobody needs to be told about it.
And if today is not the day, close this and leave it. Nothing here is asking for anything you do not have.
You are able to finish this in eight seconds, and it has never once been necessary to make it longer to make it real. Matthew 5:37 recommends the smallest possible form of a promise, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in the eight seconds while somebody says one line.
Here is what I believe is going out over somebody this evening.
You are not somebody who did not want to say it, and a year of never finding the hour has never once been a lack of will in you. Matthew 5:37 says let your communication be, Yea, yea, and it is the Holy Spirit, not my telling you, who takes a growing plan off a person and hands back eight seconds.
And this, which is what I came with.
You have a promise that fits in one sentence, and it has never once needed the whole speech to be the whole thing. The word recommends the smallest form and calls the elaboration surplus, and the same Spirit who moved Matthew is standing in your front room this evening.
One sentence. Then stop.
Declare this over yourself
- Idea that it has to be the whole speech, you were never required. Matthew 5:37 says let your communication be, Yea, yea, so by the Holy Spirit I say one sentence tonight and then stop, in the name of Jesus.
- Plan that has been growing since the winter, you are surplus to this. The word recommends the smallest possible form and calls everything past it unnecessary, and by the Spirit of God I am done building a cathedral to say one line.
- Father, You put the whole weight of a promise on a plain yes and never once asked for the elaboration. Your word says let your communication be, Yea, yea, so by Your Spirit I say one sentence of it again tonight, with what I know inside it.
Matthew 5:37
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