Oh my son Absalom

Dr Iain Jamieson August 08, 2021 0 4

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2 Samuel 18: 31-33 (NIVUK)

31 Then the Cushite arrived and said, ‘My lord the king, hear the good news! The Lord has vindicated you today by delivering you from the hand of all who rose up against you.’

32 The king asked the Cushite, ‘Is the young man Absalom safe?’

The Cushite replied, ‘May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up to harm you be like that young man.’

33 The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: ‘O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you – O Absalom, my son, my son!’

This story breaks me. I have three sons and until I met them coming into the world I truly didn’t know the deeper meanings of love. They each have their own character, the writer and merchant seaman, the soldier and pharmacist and the youngest a man of peace and care with a photographer’s eye.

They are — safe to say — nothing like their Dad. My life has been a perpetual motion machine and my orientation is always to “what’s next”, “how can we make this better”. The thing is, my sons are their own men, they can be still. Throughout their lives I’ve been the guy that says “well done”, “good man” and then comes that fateful awful tyranny of the word ‘but’. You passed that exam “but what are you going to do next” etc. I owned ‘but’ in my own life for so long.

Here’s the thing, every time you use the word ‘but’ in a sentence, the person you are speaking to often disregards everything you have said beforehand and the upshot of this is that listener never feels good enough — you added a ‘but’. It’s just tragic how much I love these three boys of mine and how proud I am of the men they are. No ifs buts or maybes. It’s not what I’ve said though is it — I let my internal talk become my ‘actual’ talk.

I live in fear of the reprisals from ‘but’ To hear them say “Nothing’s ever good enough for you is it Dad?” I am so terribly afraid that they carry an idea of never being good enough from the lips of a man who is so much lesser than they are.

A throwaway word. A word which can sour relationships and give the wrong impression.

To lose them as David loses Absalom — it’s the sum of all fears because in his lament he says “oh my son my son” all artifice is stripped away — there are no buts here, just awful aching loss.

There are no buts in God’s kingdom friends. Jesus didn’t ever say “I love you but…”. God doesn’t love you but… Let’s lose the ‘but’ in our lives. Let’s just be.

PRAYER:

Lord let us be mindful of ‘but’.

Lord help me to understand how it can be a weapon and an enemy of the truth.

Let me say what I mean and feel without qualification

Grant me the stillness and the harmony not to use ‘but’, just let me be.