They Asked When The Next One Is

They asked before the bags were out of the car.

So when is the next one. Both of them, more or less at once, in the driveway, still in the clothes they had been in for two days, and asking with the complete confidence of children who have just had a good week.

And you said something. Probably we will see, or let us get in the house first, or something with a laugh in it.

And what you actually had, standing in that driveway, was nothing. No date, no plan, and a fairly clear view of the next eighteen months in which there is not one.

And you could not say that. Not standing in a driveway in the last four minutes of a good week, with both of them looking at you.

So you deflected, and it was the right call in the moment, and the question is still open, and it will come back on about the fourth day.

Let me give you the honest answer, because there is one, and it is better than a deflection and it is not a promise.

Though it tarry, wait for it

There is a verse in Habakkuk about a thing that has not happened yet, and it does something with delay that is worth having in a driveway.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habakkuk 2:3, King James Version)

You have a verse in the written word that puts a thing at an appointed time rather than at a known one, and no absence of a date has ever once made a hope into a lie. Habakkuk 2:3 says the vision is for an appointed time and tells the prophet to wait rather than giving him the day, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that available to a woman with no plan and two children asking.

Look at what he is given and what he is not. He is given: there is an appointed time. He is not given: what it is.

That is exactly your position. And notice that the not knowing is not treated as a failure of the promise. It is built into how the thing was told to him.

You are able to hold a thing you have no date for, and having no date has never once been the same thing as having nothing. It is written that the vision is yet for an appointed time, though it tarry, which puts the timing outside the prophet's knowledge, and the Spirit of God is what makes an honest not knowing a legitimate thing to stand in.

And then the phrase in the middle. Though it tarry, wait for it.

Tarry means take a long time. The verse concedes the delay, out loud, and then tells him to wait anyway, and does not apologize for the length of it.

You are able to name the delay rather than pretend around it, and conceding that it is a long way off has never once made you a mother with nothing to give. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person be honest about a wait without it turning into a disappointment, and Habakkuk 2 concedes the tarrying in the same breath as it tells him to hold on.

Now, I am not going to tell you your next trip is appointed and coming. That is not what this verse is about and I would be inventing a promise. Habakkuk's vision was a specific word given to him about a specific thing.

What transfers is the form of the answer. There is a thing you do not know the date of, and not knowing is an acceptable position to stand in and speak from.

You are able to speak from a position of not knowing, and no missing date has ever once disqualified you from saying anything at all. Habakkuk 2:3 has the prophet told to wait without being told when, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an honest not knowing into somewhere a mother can stand.

Why the deflection costs more than the truth

Now the practical part, and it is about what a deflection does to a child.

We will see is not heard as we will see. It is heard as a no with a nice voice, and children work out the code by about seven. And then the good week ends on a piece of adult evasion, which is the last thing that happens in it.

That is what makes the deflection expensive. Not that it was a lie, because it was not. That it put a small closed door at the very end of a week that had none in it.

You are able to end that week on something other than a closed door, and no honest answer has ever once been the harder thing for them to hear. The Spirit of God is what shows a mother how a kind evasion actually lands, and it is written that the prophet was given the delay plainly rather than being managed.

And here is what children actually want when they ask that question, which is not a date. They want to know that this happens again. Not when. That it is a category of thing this family does, rather than a one off.

You can answer that. You can answer it truthfully today, with no date and no money, because it is a statement about who you are rather than about the calendar.

You are able to answer the question they were actually asking, and no version of that has ever once required a date or any money. It is written that the vision is for an appointed time and that it will speak at the end, which is an answer about certainty rather than about scheduling, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a mother what her own children were asking.

And then one more piece, which is the part that makes it land rather than float. Name one thing you can actually do, with a date on it, that is not a trip.

Because a hope with nothing attached evaporates in about four days, and a hope with one small dated thing beside it does not.

One honest sentence, and one thing you can name

So here is the assignment.

Answer that question honestly in one sentence. And add one thing you can actually name.

Go and find them, because it will not come up again in the same way, and say the honest version: I do not know when the next one is. But we do this. We are a family who goes places, and there will be another one.

You are able to say I do not know out loud to your own children, and saying it has never once been a disappointment they could not carry. Habakkuk 2:3 gives the prophet the appointed time without the date, and the Spirit of God is with a woman saying something plain in a kitchen four days later.

Then the second half, and this is what stops it evaporating. Add one thing you can name.

Something small, real, and dated: and on Saturday the ninth we are going to the river for the day. Something that costs almost nothing and that you can absolutely deliver.

You are able to put one dated thing beside an undated hope, and one small day has never once been too little to hold a bigger thing up. It is written that the vision will speak at the end and not lie, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a mother gives her children a certainty and a Saturday in the same breath.

And do not apologize for the gap between the two. Do not say I know it is not the same. They will not compare them unless you do it for them.