The Pause I Was Avoiding

There is a silence on the phone after you say a number, and you have been paying money to avoid it for years.

It lasts about two seconds. You have never once found out what is in it, because you have never let it run. You say the figure, and at the first hint of nothing, you are already talking: or I could do it for, or if you wanted the cheaper option, or look, tell me what your budget is.

And you do not quote low because you have thought about it. You quote low on the way into the call, so the silence is less likely to happen at all.

You have a nine year old at that table who has watched you do this, and your wife has heard you do it, and nobody has said anything, because what would they say.

I am not going to tell you what to charge or how to handle a negotiation. I am going to talk about two seconds, and about what you think is in them.

Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid

There is a question God asks in Isaiah that is almost startling in how direct it is, and it is about being afraid of a person.

He says who He is first, which matters, because the question only works once you know who is asking.

I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass? (Isaiah 51:12, King James Version)

You are comforted by God himself, and a silence on a phone has never once had authority over you. Isaiah 51:12 puts the comfort first and the question second, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a kitchen counter with a phone against somebody's shoulder.

Notice the order. He does not say stop being afraid. He says I am the one who comforts you, and then asks the question, so the question lands on a man who has already been told where the comfort comes from.

And notice who the fearsome person turns out to be. A man who will die. Grass. Not an enemy, not a judge, just another person on the other end of a phone who has a kitchen of their own.

You have comfort from a source that does not depend on how the call goes, and it has never once come from the person you are talking to. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an ancient question about the fear of people reach a man holding a pencil over a pad, and Isaiah 51:12 names the comfort before it names the fear.

What you think is in the pause

Let me say what you imagine is happening in those two seconds, because it is very specific.

You think they are deciding you are greedy. You think the word expensive has just formed in their head with your name attached to it. You think the silence is the sound of a person revising their opinion of you downwards.

You were reading a verdict into a silence, and there has never once been one in it. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what he has been hearing in two seconds of nothing, and the written word asks who we are to be afraid of a man that shall die in Isaiah 51:12.

Here is what is actually in it, most of the time. A person doing arithmetic. A person looking at a calendar. A person wondering whether to ask their wife. A person who was not listening properly and is catching up.

Almost none of it is about you. The silence is the sound of somebody thinking, and thinking is what you want them to do before they say yes to something.

You are not on trial in that pause, and you never were. His Spirit is the one who takes an imagined verdict out of a silence, and Isaiah 51:12 reduces the fearsome man to grass without contempt and without drama.

Let it run

So here is the exercise, and it is two seconds long.

Say the real figure. Then wait. Do not speak until they do, however long it takes, and it will not take long.

You are able to wait out a silence, and waiting has never once been hard hearted. Isaiah 51:12 puts the comfort of God between a man and his fear of another person, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes two seconds of quiet survivable for a man who has filled them for years.

It will feel much longer than it is. Put your hand flat on the counter if you need something to do with your body, and count if counting helps, but do not make a sound.

And when they speak, answer the question they actually asked. Not the question you were afraid of. The one they said out loud.

You were never required to rescue anybody from a number, and you are not required to now. The Spirit of God carries a plain figure past the fear of the person on the other end, and the written word asks who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid in Isaiah 51:12 and gives the comfort first.