He Is Alive And I Cannot Ask Him

He is forty minutes away and he answers on the second ring.

That is what makes this different from every other version of this. He is not gone. He is not unreachable. He is sitting in a chair right now with the television on, and if you called him he would be pleased.

And you cannot do it.

Because asking him how to do something would mean the two of you both knowing, at the same moment, on the same call, that he never taught you. And neither of you has ever said that out loud, and there is a whole architecture in that family built around not saying it.

So you look it up instead. You have looked up about four hundred things a man forty minutes away could have told you in ninety seconds.

Let me put this down before anything else. Not knowing how is not a character flaw. And a daughter who cannot make a phone call is not being proud. She is protecting a relationship, which is a completely different thing and a much kinder one.

When he was yet a great way off

There is a moment in the prodigal son story that happens before anybody says anything at all.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. (Luke 15:20, King James Version)

The son had a speech prepared. He had worked out exactly what he was going to say, and he had rehearsed it, and it was a good speech.

He never got to give it. The father ran before a word was spoken, and everything that mattered happened before the explanation.

You have a picture of a father who moves before the speech, and needing to explain yourself first has never once been a requirement anywhere in that story. Luke 15:20 puts the running and the embrace before the son opens his mouth, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that read as relief rather than as a story about somebody else's family.

And notice what the father did not do. He did not wait to hear how it had gone. He did not require the account before the welcome.

You are not obliged to arrive with an explanation attached, and a conversation that starts without a preamble has never once been dishonest. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the speech out of a person's hands, and it is written in Luke that the compassion arrived while the son was still a great way off.

The call does not have to carry the whole thing

Here is the move, and it is smaller than the thing that has been refused for forty two years.

The phone call has been treated as though it must contain the conversation. It does not. Those are two entirely separate events, and only one of them is happening tonight.

The conversation, if it ever happens, is about forty years and a childhood and what was and was not handed over. That is enormous and it may never happen and nobody is requiring it of you.

The call is: Dad, how do you get a screw out when the head has gone.

You have been declining a phone call because it might have to be a reckoning, and one specific question has never once obligated anybody to have the larger conversation. It is written in Luke 15:20 that the father moved before any speech was made, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates one thing from another when they have been fused for decades.

And here is what a specific question does. It gives him something to do. Men of that generation are very often far better at doing than at talking, and handing a man a question he can answer is a way of letting him give you something without either of you having to name what was missing.

He will be pleased. He will probably talk for longer than necessary. He may tell you something about his own father that has never come up in forty years.

Now the limit, and I say it here rather than in a footer. He may cheerfully tell you how to do something nobody should do at home. Never a gas appliance, never the breaker panel, never mains wiring, never a wall holding the building up, never a roof. Call a licensed professional and pay them properly, and let him be right about the small things without being right about everything.

You are entirely allowed to take his answer on one thing and refuse it on another, and disagreeing with your father about a job has never once been the same as rejecting him. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person peace about that, and Scripture puts the compassion ahead of the speech and asks nobody to settle anything first.

Ask one small thing and do not explain

So here is the ask, and the second half of it is the whole design.

Make the call and ask him one small specific thing, and do not explain why.

No preamble. No I know I should probably know this. No small laugh at your own expense. Ring him, do the ordinary opening, and then ask.

You are able to make one phone call and ask one question, and a specific practical question has never once been an admission of anything. The Spirit of God is the one who removes a speech a person has been rehearsing for years, and Luke 15:20 has the father run before a single prepared word is spoken.

Choose the question in advance and make it narrow. Not how do I fix a chair. How do you get a screw out when the head has gone. A narrow question has an answer with an end on it, and it does not open into forty years.

And when he answers, say thank you and use it. Do not add anything. Do not turn it into the other conversation. Let the call be exactly what it is.

The larger thing may follow later, in its own time, or it may not. Neither of those is tonight's business.

You have permission to make a small call that carries nothing extra, and one narrow question has never once been a smaller act than a confrontation. It is written in Luke that the father ran while the son was still a long way off, and the same Spirit who breathed that line is standing in that room with you.