Nobody Asks Me Any More

For forty years, you decided where this family went.

Not by force. By competence. You were the one who knew the roads, who worked out the timings, who had done it before and could tell you which of two ways was faster in August. Somebody would say we should go, and then they would look at you, and then it happened.

And now your son does it. And he is good at it, and he does it differently from how you did it, and it works.

And nobody asks you.

Not out of unkindness. Nobody has excluded you from anything. It simply happens now without a phone call to you in it, which is exactly what a family growing up is supposed to look like, and you know that, and you would say it out loud to anybody who asked.

And you sit in a chair while it gets arranged in the next room.

There is a thing you want, and it is small, and you have not asked for it because you have not been able to work out a way of asking that does not sound like a man who cannot let go. Let me help with that.

Forsake me not when I am old

There is a prayer in the seventy first Psalm from a man who is aware of his age and asks for something specific, and the thing he asks for is not comfort.

Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. (Psalm 71:18, King James Version)

You have a prayer in the written word from an old man asking to still be useful rather than to be comfortable, and no year of your age has ever once made that an unreasonable thing to want. Psalm 71:18 asks for time in order to show something to the next generation rather than for rest, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells an older man that the wanting itself is legitimate.

Read what he actually asks for. Not to be looked after. Not to be included. He asks not to be forsaken until he has shown something to this generation and the one coming.

That is a request for a job. And it is made out loud, to God, by a man who names his own age in the same sentence.

You are able to want a job at your age and to say so, and asking for one has never once been the same thing as refusing to hand anything over. It is written that the prayer is forsake me not until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, which is a request for work rather than for care, and the Spirit of God is what gives an old man permission to want to be used.

And notice something else. He asks. He does not wait to be assigned.

That whole Psalm is a man in his last years speaking up rather than being spoken about, and nothing in it suggests he was owed it.

You are able to ask rather than wait to be offered, and asking has never once made you a man who cannot let go. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates asking from clinging in a man's own mind, and Psalm 71 has an old man making a specific request out loud.

What you actually want is smaller than the thing you lost

Now the practical part, and it starts with getting the size right.

Because the only thing there has ever been to picture asking for is the old job back, and you do not want the old job back. You genuinely do not. At seventy four, and the arranging was tiring even at fifty.

So you have compared two things: running the trip, and nothing. And since the first one is not wanted and not available, nothing has been the answer for about six years.

You are able to want something between running it and nothing at all, and no version of that middle has ever once been you trying to take back over. The Spirit of God is what finds a third option for a man who has been choosing between two, and it is written that the old man asked for one specific thing rather than for his old position.

So let me name the middle for you, because I think I know what it is.

You want to be asked one question. You want somebody, at some point, to say: which way would you go, or what do you think about the Saturday. Not to be obeyed. Consulted. Once.

And underneath that, you want to be doing something on the day rather than being transported.

You are able to name what you actually want in one sentence, and it has never once been the whole thing you used to do. It is written that the request was to show God's strength to the next generation, which is a task rather than a title, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gets a man from a general ache to a specific ask.

And here is why nobody has offered it. Not because they do not want you involved. Because from the outside there is nothing to offer. A man sitting in a chair looking content is a man who appears to be fine, and asking him to take on a job might look like imposing on him.

They are being careful with you. That is the whole reason.

You are looking at carefulness rather than at being written off, and six years of nobody offering has never once meant nobody wanted you in it. Psalm 71:18 has an old man asking rather than waiting to be handed anything, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man what a silence in his own family actually was.

Ask for one job, and make it small

So here is the assignment, and the size of it is the whole thing.

Ask for one specific job on the next trip. And ask for a small one.

Small, on purpose. Not the route and not the plan. Ask for something like: I will do the map, or I will be the one who knows what time we are leaving, or I will take the two youngest for an hour on the Saturday morning.

You are able to ask for something small and specific, and its size has never once been a measure of what it does in a man. Psalm 71:18 asks for one thing rather than for a restoration, and the Spirit of God is with a man saying a plain sentence at a kitchen table.

And ask plainly, with no history attached. Do not say I used to do all of this. Do not say I know you have got it under control, but. Every one of those turns the request into a conversation about the forty years, and then somebody has to reassure you, and the job gets lost in it.

Say: give me the map. Four words.

You are able to ask without mentioning the forty years, and leaving them out has never once been you pretending they did not happen. It is written that the old man's prayer named his age and then went straight to the request, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds a man's tongue off his own history.

And then do the job. Actually do it, properly, and do not do more than it. If you asked for the map, do the map. Do not also, quietly, work out the timings and mention them.

Because a job done exactly as asked earns another one, and a job done expansively confirms what everybody was gently worried about.