It is one customer. You know that. You have said it to yourself several times in a slightly impatient voice.
And you have still thought about almost nothing else for six days.
You have gone over the last few jobs looking for the moment. You have wondered whether it was the price, or the week you were late, or something you said. You have looked at their social media once, which you are not proud of. And you have drafted a message that you have not sent, three times, and each version is worse than the last.
And underneath all of that is a question you have not put into words, which is roughly: what does this say about me.
I want to answer that, and I want to do it without giving you a single word of advice about winning anybody back, because that is not what this site does and it is not what you need today.
He asked the twelve if they were going too
There is a moment in John that I find one of the most human things in the Gospels, and it comes straight after a crowd walks away.
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? (John 6:66-67, King James Version)
Will ye also go away.
He asks. That is the thing I want you to see. He does not simply carry on. He turns to the ones who are left and puts the question out loud, and it is a question with something exposed in it.
Nothing in that passage suggests He had done anything wrong. He had just said something true that people found hard. And the leaving still gets registered, and it still produces a question addressed to the people still standing there.
John 6:66 records departure as a real event rather than as something a person simply absorbs, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody stop being embarrassed by how much a leaving landed.
You are allowed to feel a departure, and it has never once been a sign of weakness that it registered. John 6:66 has a mass leaving followed immediately by a question asked out loud, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes room for a person to admit a loss landed.
Why one customer weighs this much
Let me explain the disproportion, because I do not think you are being ridiculous, and because John 6:66 records a leaving as a real event and the Holy Spirit does not treat it as fuss.
When you work for yourself, in a house, without colleagues, every customer is also a verdict.
In a job, feedback arrives through a process. There are appraisals and colleagues and a manager, and a single client leaving is absorbed by a system that keeps telling you where you stand. You have none of that. Your only source of information about whether you are any good is whether people keep coming back.
So a departure is not one lost unit of income. It is the only feedback mechanism you have, delivering a negative result, in silence, with no explanation attached. John 6:66 has people walk away from One who had done nothing wrong, and the Holy Spirit is the one who breaks that link.
Of course it takes six days. It would take anybody six days.
John 6:66 places a leaving inside a passage where the one being left has done nothing wrong, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a departure from a verdict.
You are not receiving a verdict, and a leaving has never once been an assessment. The written word has people walk away from somebody who had done nothing but tell the truth, and the Spirit of God is the one who breaks the link between somebody going and a person's worth.
Do not send the message
Here is the practical part, and it is a refusal.
Do not send it.
Not the version asking whether everything was all right. Not the friendly one. Not the one that mentions you noticed. Every one of those is asking them to manage your feeling about their decision, and it puts a person who has made an ordinary choice into an awkward position.
And it will not tell you anything. If they reply at all, they will say something kind and vague, because that is what people do, and you will read it eleven times looking for the real answer, and there will not be one in it.
The thing that actually settles this is doing the next piece of work well. Not as a strategy. Because working is the one thing that reliably puts a person back in contact with what they can actually do.
John 6:67 has the Lord turn to the ones who are still there rather than after the ones who left, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a person's face back toward the work in front of them.
You are able to turn toward the next one, and chasing has never once produced an answer. John 6:67 has attention go to the people still standing there, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present in the ordinary work that comes after a loss.
So here is what I believe is going out over somebody today.
You are not diminished, and one departure has never once been a report on your work. I am not soothing you. John 6:66 has a crowd walk away from somebody who had done nothing but say a true thing, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my telling who breaks the connection between a leaving and a person's own worth.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You are still able to do the thing you do, and the six days have never once been about the money. The written word has the question asked of the ones who remained rather than the ones who went, and the Spirit of God is the one who turns a person back toward the work in front of them.
Do the next one well. Do not send the message.
Declare this over yourself
- Question about what this says about me, you are not what a leaving means. John 6:66 has people walk away from One who had done nothing wrong, so by the Holy Spirit you do not get another six days in the name of Jesus.
- Draft sitting in my phone, you are not going anywhere tonight. The word turns the question to the ones who stayed, and by the Holy Spirit I am done asking somebody to manage my feeling about their own decision.
- Father, You registered a leaving out loud and You did not pretend it was nothing. Your word says will ye also go away, so by Your Spirit I do the next piece of work well today, and I delete the message.
John 6:66
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