She is very good at this and it has got her precisely nowhere.
Her brother is forty and thoughtful and reads a great deal, and for about six years the two of them have been having a version of the same conversation, usually on a Sunday, usually after a meal, usually starting from something on the news.
She has done the reading. She can handle the historical questions. She has an answer for the suffering objection that is genuinely good and that she has watched land with other people.
She wins. Not rudely, and he is not a fool, but she is better at the specific form of argument they are having and both of them know it.
And nothing moves.
He listens, he concedes points, he says that is fair, and he goes home, and the following month they do it again from a slightly different angle, and he is exactly where he was in 2019.
Here is the sentence she has never said out loud.
She has started to suspect that she is not talking to the part of him that decides anything, and she has no idea where that part is or how to reach it.
Read what Paul asks for on their behalf
There is a prayer in Ephesians, prayed by a man who was formidable in debate and could have prayed for anything, and what he asks for is not that they be persuaded.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.Ephesians 1:18
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.
Read where he puts the request. Not on their reasoning, which he could have addressed himself and did, at length, elsewhere. On their sight, which is not a thing another person can operate.
And notice what that assumes. It assumes there is a kind of seeing that argument does not produce and cannot substitute for, and that the man who was best in the ancient world at making a case knew perfectly well that his case was not the mechanism.
He made the arguments and he prayed for the eyes, and he never confused the two.
Your asking can move from his reasoning to his sight, and Ephesians 1:18 has Paul praying for eyes rather than for agreement. That is what the word actually requests, not a retreat I am suggesting, and the Holy Spirit is the One who opens what no argument has ever opened.
The arguing was not wrong, it was insufficient
Now the plain thing, and I am not going to tell you to stop thinking.
Your reading was not wasted. Your answers are good. Somebody in a future conversation will need exactly what you've built, and I will not have you concluding that six years of taking your brother's questions seriously was a mistake, because taking somebody's questions seriously is a form of love and he knows it.
But arguing has become the only channel, and a channel that has moved nothing in six years is worth examining. Not because the content is wrong. Because it is aimed at the part of him that agrees, and agreement has never once been the thing standing between anybody and God.
And there is a cost you have noticed. Sunday has become a fixture with a shape, and he braces slightly when the plates are cleared, and both of you know what is coming.
And nothing about six years of arguing has ever damaged him beyond reach. Scripture puts the enlightening of the eyes in God's hands and never in a sister's, and the Holy Spirit is not restricted to the parts of a man that respond to evidence.
One conversation with no case in it
Here is the practical piece, and it will be harder for you than a fast.
Have one conversation this week where you ask questions and make no case at all.
Not as a strategy. Not as a softer approach that gets you to the same destination by a different road, because he is intelligent and he will see it and it will cost you more than the arguing did.
Ask him about the thing he actually thinks about at four in the morning. Ask him what he would want to be true. Ask, and then let his answer stand without responding to it, which is the entire exercise and which you will find nearly impossible.
Then pray Paul's prayer afterwards, for his eyes, and let it be short.
You are able to stop making the case and keep loving him, and the two were never the same act. Ephesians 1:18 asks that the eyes of the understanding be enlightened and leaves the enlightening to God, and the Holy Spirit is the One who does what argument has not done in six years.
So here is the turn, and it is this Sunday, after the plates.
Ask instead of argue.
Not because the arguments were wrong. They were mostly right, and being mostly right for six years is exhausting and lonely and nobody has thanked you for it.
Ask because you have been aiming at the one part of your brother that was never the obstacle, and because there is a request available to you that Paul made for people he could easily have out-argued, and he made it anyway.
You are able to change what you are asking for today, and the arguments were never the mechanism. Ephesians 1:18 asks for enlightened eyes rather than for a won case, and the Holy Spirit is with a woman who has been trying for six years.
Now the honest half. Nothing here promises your brother sees anything, this year or in another six, and asking questions is not a better technique that works where argument failed. However He answers, the outcome is His and not ours to sell, and six years of good arguments are never evidence against you. What is settled is where the request belongs.
Six years of Sundays. Go and ask him something instead.
Declare this over yourself
Say them out loud. The standing to speak them is yours because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the authority is not your own: it is His, delegated and carried in His Name, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes the word live in a thoughtful woman's mouth. However He answers, the outcome is His and not ours to sell. These lines are spoken over yourself and never over your brother, because what he sees and when is between him and God and no word of mine is laid across another person's will.
- Habit of arguing him toward the door, you are exhausting and you have never once opened anything. Ephesians 1:18 has Paul praying for enlightened eyes rather than for a won argument. You are not faithfulness, and you are a channel that has moved nothing in six years.
- Fear that asking questions means giving up on him, get out in the name of Jesus. You have made six years of Sundays into a fixture he braces for, and God has never once needed a sister to do the work of the Spirit. Paul made the arguments and prayed for the eyes and never confused the two.
- Lord, You enlighten the eyes of the understanding, and Scripture puts that request in Paul's mouth for people he could have out-argued easily. That is written down and it is not mine to do, and the Holy Spirit is doing what argument has not. I am asking questions this Sunday, and I am leaving the case in the drawer.
Ephesians 1:18
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