We Made It Together And Then I Panicked

It was a good afternoon.

Paper all over the table, glue on two chairs, the small one doing a part of it badly and being extremely serious about it, the older one bossing everybody, and about forty minutes of the whole house being in one room.

You would not trade that afternoon for anything and you know it.

And then it was finished and dry and sitting on the side, and you looked at it on the Thursday and something went cold.

It looks like we did it in an afternoon.

Which it does, because you did. And the thought after that one is the one that has been circling ever since, which is that somebody is going to open this and understand that a grown man handed over a school project, and that they will be lovely about it, and that your children will be standing right there while it happens.

There is a verse about where children actually learn things, and it is not about afternoons with glue.

When thou sittest in thine house

Here it is.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7, King James Version)

Look at the settings it names.

Sitting in a house. Walking along a road. Lying down. Getting up. That is the entire list, and there is not one formal occasion anywhere in it.

The teaching happens in the parts of a day nobody is treating as a lesson.

You have been teaching in the ordinary parts of a day without deciding to, and Deuteronomy 6:7 lists sitting and walking and lying down rather than any arranged occasion. The Holy Spirit is the one who chose those settings, and He chose the ones where nobody is paying attention on purpose.

Now the word diligently, because it does not mean what it sounds like.

It is not about intensity. It means sharply, repeatedly, the way a thing is made to stick by being said and shown many times in ordinary circumstances rather than once in a serious one.

Which means the teaching is happening in the small unplanned moments, and there is no off switch on it.

You are teaching whether or not you are trying, and it is written that the talking happens through the whole ordinary shape of a day rather than in a set aside hour. The Spirit of God is the one who built it that way, and He built it so that a father cannot be off duty and does not need to be.

And here is where that lands on the Thursday problem.

The handing over is one of those moments. Children present, watching, learning something from it, and nobody in the room treating it as a lesson.

You have a lesson happening whether you plan one or not, and His word puts the teaching inside the ordinary traffic of a house. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes a twenty second moment stick for thirty years, and He does it through moments exactly that size.

What the apology would teach them

Now let me say plainly what your children would learn if the sentence comes out.

They made that thing. They were there, they worked on it, the small one did a part of it and is proud of that part.

If you hand it over and say it is only something we threw together, they learn in one second that what they made was not enough, and that the adult response to giving somebody your hours is to apologize for them.

You have a rule in your hands rather than an object, and it is written that the teaching is diligent and constant rather than confined to what a father means to say. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a man what a throwaway sentence does in a child, and it does a great deal.

And they will keep it. That is the part worth knowing.

Children do not retain the lesson you prepare. They retain the aside. The thing said quickly while handing something over, in a voice that was not being careful, is exactly the kind of thing that lasts.

You are speaking into the part they keep, and Scripture names the unguarded moments as where the teaching lands. The Holy Spirit is the one who knows which twenty seconds a child holds onto, and it is almost never the one anybody planned.

And here is the other side of it, which is the reason this is worth doing well.

If you hand it over plainly, with their names in it, and say we made this for you, they learn something entirely different and equally durable.

They learn that hours count. That a thing made by people who love you is handed over without apology. That their father was not embarrassed by what they made together.

You have a better lesson available in the same twenty seconds, and it is written that the teaching happens when thou sittest in thine house rather than in anything arranged. The Spirit of God is the one who makes that one stick just as hard, and it will stick just as hard.

Hand it over in front of them

So here is what to do, and the children being in the room is the point rather than the problem.

Hand it over with them there. Do not do it quietly beforehand and do not send it ahead. Let them see the whole thing.

You are able to make the handing over part of the afternoon, and Deuteronomy 6:7 puts the teaching in front of children rather than away from them. The Holy Spirit is the one who arranges a room where children are watching, and He arranged this one.

And say one sentence with their names in it.

We made this for you. Then the names, and what each of them did, said plainly and without any comedy in it.

She did this part. He did that bit and it took him ages. That is the whole speech and it takes about eight seconds.

You have eight seconds that will carry for years, and it is written that the talking happens in the ordinary parts of a day rather than in prepared words. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a naming like that land in a child, and it lands in the middle of their chest.

And do not apologize for any part of it.

Not the word only. Not thrown together. Not a small laugh in the middle of the sentence, which is the version that gets past most men because it does not feel like an apology.

The laugh is the apology. It is the same lesson delivered faster.

You are able to keep the laugh out of it, and the written word names the diligence in the ordinary rather than in the careful. The Holy Spirit is the one who catches a laugh before it comes out, and He catches it in a man who has decided in advance.