I Said Sorry While I Was Handing It Over

It comes out while the thing is still in your hand.

That is the timing and the timing is the whole story. Not afterward. Not if they say something. It is out before they have taken hold of it, while it is still in the air between the two of you.

It is not very good.

The corner went wrong.

I would have made another one but I ran out of time.

And by the time it reaches their hands, half of it has already been taken back. They are holding a thing that has been officially declared substandard by the person who made it, and they now have a job to do, which is to reassure you, and they will do it, and everybody will be slightly relieved when the conversation moves on.

I want to look at what that apology is actually for, because it is not modesty, whatever it feels like.

It is a shield.

If you say it first, they cannot say it. And if they were never going to say it, which they were not, then you have still made sure they cannot think it without you having got there first.

That is a reasonable thing to want and it costs something. What it costs is the giving. A gift handed over with a disclaimer attached is a smaller thing than the same object handed over in silence, and the difference is entirely in the seven words at the front.

God loveth a cheerful giver

Paul writes about giving to a church that had promised something and was finding it difficult, and the line at the end of it is better known than the sentence it sits in.

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7, King James Version)

Not grudgingly, or of necessity.

Both of those are about the manner rather than the amount. A grudging gift and a reluctant gift are the same size as a glad one and they arrive differently.

And the word cheerful there is a strong one. It is not merely willing. It carries gladness in it, the sense of a person who is actually pleased to be handing something over.

You are being spoken to about the manner of a gift, and 2 Corinthians 9:7 puts the whole weight on how it goes across rather than on what it is. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a line about a difficult collection and lays it down on a front step with something small changing hands.

And here is the thing to notice for your particular case. Cheerful does not require confidence in the object. It requires gladness in the giving.

You have gladness available regardless of the corner, and it is already settled in the written word that the cheerfulness attaches to the giver and not to the quality of the thing. His Spirit is the one who says that over a man whose apology is already forming.

The apology is asking for something

Now let me name the transaction, because until it is named it looks like humility.

The apology asks them for something.

It asks to be reassured. And they will do it, because they are decent, and the whole exchange turns around: an object went across and a service came back.

That is not a gift. That is a small trade, and neither of you would describe it that way, and both of you feel the slight awkwardness of it afterward.

And this: the corner is not a measure of you. It is a corner. And the object is not less of a gift for having one, and nothing in the sight of God attaches to whether a made thing came out well.

You are not required to warn anybody, and heaven has never once asked a giver to grade the gift on the way out of his hands. 2 Corinthians 9:7 puts the manner above the object entirely, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a giving from turning into a request.

And do not swing to boasting either. This is not an instruction to hand it over saying it came out well. Nothing needs to be said in either direction.

You have permission to say nothing at all, and this is yours: not grudgingly and not of necessity leaves silence entirely available. It is written in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that God loveth a cheerful giver, and the Holy Spirit is the one who puts gladness in a man who has never handed anything over without a warning.

Hand it over and say here

So here is the ask, and it is one word long.

The next time you give somebody something you made, say here.

That is it. Here, or their name and then the object. Nothing about the corner. Nothing about how long it took, nothing about what would have been done differently, nothing about the one before that came out better.

You have gladness available that does not depend on the object, and 2 Corinthians 9:7 attaches the cheerfulness to the giver. The Holy Spirit is the one who puts a warning back in a man's mouth and leaves it there.

If they ask a question, answer the question. If they say something kind, say thank you. Do not say it is nothing.

The silence in that moment will be about two seconds long and it will feel like ten. Let it be there.

And go and make the next one this week, badly, in twenty minutes, so there is something else coming and this one is not the last chance to explain yourself.

You are covered while an unexplained object goes across, and 2 Corinthians 9:7 is the ground under that. The written word puts the manner of the giving above every other consideration, and the Spirit of God is present on a front step where a man is holding seven words in.