Driver, Money And Map

On every trip this family takes, you are three things, and none of them is a person.

You are the driver. You are the money. And you are the map, which is the one nobody notices, and which means you are the only person who knows where anybody is or what happens next.

And that is not a complaint about anybody. Somebody has to be those three things and you are best at all of them.

But here is what I noticed, and see whether it lands.

If somebody asked your children what you like doing, they would struggle. They know what you do. They have no idea what you like, because on every day out for eleven years you have been performing three functions and not once been visible as a man who wanted something.

That is the subject of this article and it is smaller and more selfish than you think it is going to be, and it is not selfish at all.

Take my yoke upon you

There is an invitation in Matthew about a yoke, and the specific words in it are worth reading carefully by a man who carries three jobs.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (Matthew 11:29, King James Version)

You have an invitation in the written word to take on a yoke that comes with rest attached, and no version of it has ever once been addressed to men with lighter loads than yours. Matthew 11:29 offers a yoke and rest in the same sentence rather than treating them as opposites, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to a man who has driven every mile of eleven years.

Look at the strangeness of it. He offers a yoke. That is a working implement. It is not a chair.

And then, in the same breath, rest unto your souls. So the rest being offered is not the absence of a load. It is a different relationship to carrying one.

You are able to carry something and be rested at the same time, and no part of that has ever once been a contradiction. It is written take my yoke upon you and ye shall find rest unto your souls, in one sentence, which is why the rest was never going to arrive by putting everything down, and the Spirit of God is what changes how a load sits on a man.

And here is the phrase that matters most for you. Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.

He describes Himself. In the middle of an offer about work, He tells them what He is like. That is not incidental. The invitation includes knowing something about the person offering it.

You are somebody worth knowing rather than only a set of functions, and eleven years of driving has never once made that untrue in your own house. The Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man he is a person rather than an arrangement, and Matthew 11 has Christ describing His own character in the middle of an offer about labor.

That is the whole point I want to make. He did not present Himself as a service. He said what He was like. And your family, at the moment, could describe your services in detail and not your character.

Being on the list

Now the practical part, and it is a matter of one small change.

At the moment there is a list of people on every trip, and your name is not on it. You function instead as the conditions under which the trip happens.

Everybody else gets a want. Somebody wants to swim. Somebody wants to see the thing. Somebody wants to eat at a particular time. You get requirements: to be there, to get everybody there, and to know things.

You are on the list of people who are on this trip, and no amount of also being its arrangements has ever once taken you off it. The Spirit of God is what puts a man back among the people rather than among the logistics, and it is written that the invitation was to learn of Him, which is a relationship rather than a service.

And here is why nobody has noticed. It is not neglect. It is that you have never once expressed a want on a day out, and a family cannot respond to something that has never been said.

Eleven years is long enough for everybody, including your children, to have concluded that you do not have preferences. Not that they do not matter. That they do not exist.

You are able to have a want and say it, and having one has never once been you taking something from anybody in this family. It is written that the yoke and the rest come together, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man notice that he wants something.

And this matters for your children specifically, more than for you. A child who grows up watching a father who never wants anything learns that being a man means having no preferences, and then either becomes that or refuses to become that, and both of those are worse than the truth.

You are able to let them see a man who wants something, and showing them has never once been the same thing as being served by anybody. The Spirit of God is with a man doing something he chose on a Saturday, and Matthew 11:29 has Christ saying what He is like rather than only what He offers.

One thing you want, and do it

So here is the assignment, and the difficulty in it is going to surprise you.

Name one thing on the next trip that you want for yourself. Then do that one thing.

The naming is the hard part. Give it a few minutes, because in most men the first four answers are all things other people would enjoy.

Not that. Something you want. To stand in the water. To walk to the end of the thing and look at it. To sit somewhere for half an hour with a coffee. To go and look at the boats, which nobody else cares about at all.

You are able to name something nobody else in the family wants, and its being only yours has never once made it a smaller thing to do. Matthew 11:29 has Him describing His own heart in the middle of an offer, and the Spirit of God is with a man working out what he actually likes for the first time in eleven years.

Then do it, and here is the rule: say what it is, plainly, and do not offer a justification.

Not, I might just quickly, if that is all right. Say: I am going to walk to the end and look at the water, I will be twenty minutes.

You are able to say what you are doing without asking permission for it, and saying it plainly has never once been you putting yourself first. It is written that the yoke comes with rest in the same sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a man saying an ordinary sentence about himself.

And let one of them come with you if they want to, which one of them probably will, and do not turn it into something for them when they do. Keep doing your thing with a child attached. That is the whole of it.