The Chair The Children Count

He is six, and laying the table is his job, and he takes it very seriously.

He counts as he goes. Fork, fork, fork, fork. Last week he counted one extra, out loud, the way children do when they are checking their own work.

Then he looked up with the fork still in his hand and said, mum, when is he coming.

Two seconds. That is what a parent gets in that moment, with a dish in one hand and a small face waiting.

And here is the trap, and every parent in this position knows the exact shape of it.

Soon is a lie. She will not lie to him about this, and beyond that, soon has a shelf life, and the day it expires he will remember who said it.

Never is too heavy. It is also not true, because she does not know, and even if it were true she is not putting it into a six year old on a Tuesday over fish fingers.

I don't know is honest, and it hands the whole thing to him, and he is six, and children given an open question of that size will carry it around and turn it into something about themselves.

So she said something about grown ups and how things get complicated.

And he accepted it, because he is six and she is his mother.

And he asked again on Thursday. In exactly the same words. And he will ask again, because that is what children do with a question that has not been answered.

If you have run out of ways to answer that question, come and sit down while the tea goes on. Nobody here needs your two seconds.

Whose verb it is

There is a psalm about God and households, and the thing to notice is who is doing the work in it.

God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains.Psalm 68:6

Setteth.

That is God's verb. Not yours. The psalm does not say a mother arranges the solitary into families by finding the right words at teatime, and it does not say a family is restored by whoever is holding the dish.

It says God sets. It puts that beside bringing prisoners out of chains, which is the other thing in that verse nobody manages by effort.

You have been trying, at speed, twice a week, to do something the psalm assigns to God.

You are not the one responsible for setting anybody back into this family, and that has been assigned elsewhere since long before you were born. Psalm 68:6 says God setteth the solitary in families and puts the verb on Him, and it is the Holy Spirit who kept that alongside bringing prisoners out of chains rather than alongside anything a person achieves, which means the pressure you feel with a fork in your hand is carrying somebody else's job.

The sentence you can say

So what do you say on Thursday, when he asks again in the same words.

Here is one that is true, light enough for a six year old, and promises nothing.

He is not coming right now. We keep his place set anyway, because he is ours.

Read it again and notice what it does.

It is honest, because right now is exactly as far as you know. It gives him a fact rather than a mystery, so there is nothing hanging for him to fill in. It tells him the empty chair is a decision made by his family on purpose, which is the opposite of an accident that might happen to him.

And it contains no date, so nothing expires and nobody is caught out.

You have a true sentence to hand a child, and its truthfulness does not depend on anybody's return. Ephesians 4:25 says speak every man truth with his neighbor, and it commands truth without ever requiring anybody to supply information they do not possess, and it is the same Spirit who is called the Spirit of truth, which means an honest answer with a limit in it is a whole answer.

Nobody is being summoned

Let us be plain, because a parent in this position gets advice from every direction.

Nobody here is telling you to contact that person, or to arrange anything, or to let a small voice at teatime become the reason for reversing a decision already weighed.

Children ask hard questions. That is not a signal from God and it is not pressure. It is a six year old counting forks.

You are not being instructed to reach anybody, and your child's question is not an obligation dressed up as a small voice. Romans 12:18 says if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men, and it puts if it be possible into the sentence deliberately, and it is the same Spirit who gives wisdom to anybody who asks, which means what you have already weighed is still standing.