I Would Rather Lose It

You have lost work rather than say a number, and you know how many times.

It goes like this. Somebody asks what it would be. You feel the figure arrive in your mouth. And then you hear yourself say something else: that you are quite booked up at the moment, or that they might be better off asking somebody nearer, or that you are not sure it is really your sort of job.

None of it is true. You wanted the job. You had the space. You simply could not say the number, and so you gave away the whole thing to avoid one sentence.

You have done that at least four times that you can name, and one of them still bothers you, because it was work you would have loved.

I am not going to tell you what to charge. I am going to talk about what Scripture calls a snare, because that is exactly the shape of this, and the word is not an insult.

The fear of man is a snare

There is a proverb that names this and gives it a shape, and the shape is a trap rather than a sin.

It puts two things side by side: being caught by the fear of people, and being held safe somewhere else.

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe. (Proverbs 29:25, King James Version)

You are held safe somewhere that is not that conversation, and you always were. Proverbs 29:25 calls the fear of people a snare and names trust in God as the safe place, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a hall doorway with a folded plan in somebody's hand.

A snare is not a punishment. It is a mechanism. Something small catches a foot, and then the whole animal is held, and the animal is not bad, it is caught.

That is what has been happening. One sentence, unsaid, and a whole job walks away. A small thing holding something much larger, which is exactly what the word means.

You have been caught rather than weak, and there has never once been anything shameful in being caught. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an old word about a trap reach a man who has turned down work he wanted, and Proverbs 29:25 names the fear of people as a snare and not as a character flaw.

What the sentence costs

Let me say what the trade has been, because it is worth hearing out loud.

You have been paying with whole jobs in order not to say one sentence. Not a discount. Not a smaller figure. The entire piece of work, given away intact, so that a number never had to leave your mouth.

You were paying with work to protect one sentence, and it has never once been worth the exchange. The Holy Spirit is the one who puts the real price of the trade in front of a man, and the written word calls the fear of people a snare in Proverbs 29:25 and puts safety somewhere else entirely.

And here is what makes it a snare rather than a decision. You are not afraid of the figure. You are afraid of the half second after the figure, when somebody might think something about you, and they might not even say it.

An unspoken thought, in somebody else's head, has taken four jobs off you. Written down like that, it is not a reasonable arrangement, and you knew that before I said it.

You are not in anybody's hands in that doorway, and you never were. His Spirit is the one who puts a man's safety back where the verse puts it, and Proverbs 29:25 sets trust in God against the fear of a person and calls one a snare and the other safe.

Say it and stay

So here is the exercise, and the hard part is not the saying.

Say the figure. Then stay in the room. Do not leave, do not busy yourself, do not start putting your coat on, do not follow it with a reason.

You are able to say a number and remain standing there, and staying has never once been aggressive. Proverbs 29:25 puts the safe place outside the other person's opinion, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a man able to stand still after he has said a thing he has always run from.

The staying is the whole exercise. You have probably said a figure before, once or twice. What you have never done is be in the room afterwards without explaining it, and the explaining is how the snare gets you even when the sentence gets out.

And they will answer. Yes, or no, or let me think. All three are survivable and all three happen to everybody.

You were never going to be destroyed by an answer, and you are not going to be now. The Spirit of God carries a plain figure past the fear of a thought in somebody else's head, and the written word promises safety to the one who trusts in Proverbs 29:25 rather than to the one who is liked.