I Asked Why And Got A Policy Number

You asked a reasonable question in a reasonable way.

You even softened it. You wrote it three times and took out anything that could be read as a complaint, and what went out in the end was about eleven words and could not have been friendlier.

Why is it done that way now.

What came back was a reference code and a line saying the change is per that reference.

That is it. That is the whole reply.

You read it twice and then you got up and did something else, and you have been slightly not yourself for about a week.

And here is what you cannot explain, including to yourself.

It is not a big thing. You have had worse weeks than this over things that actually mattered. Nobody was rude. Nobody refused you anything. A person somewhere sent a correct and complete answer to a question that was not the question you asked.

So why has it sat on you like this.

You have started to feel silly about it, which is its own layer, and you have not mentioned it to anybody because the whole thing would take longer to explain than it is worth.

Let me tell you what I think landed, and then let me put something under it.

You did not want the reason. You wanted evidence that somebody over there knows there is a person over here.

The reference code was proof that nobody does.

Thou hast searched me, and known me

David opens a psalm with a sentence that is not about information at all.

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. (Psalm 139:1, King James Version)

Searched. That is an effort word. It is what a person does when they are looking for something specific and are prepared to spend time.

And known. Not known about. Known.

You have been searched out and known by somebody who took the trouble to do it, and Psalm 139:1 puts searching and knowing together rather than settling for one. The Holy Spirit is the one who does that in a person, and He has been doing it in you a long time before this week.

Now hold that up against a reference code, because the contrast is the whole point.

A reference code is the opposite of being searched out. It is an answer produced without any interest in who is asking. It is correct, and it required nothing.

That is why it landed. Not because you needed the reason. Because a thing arrived that had been written for nobody in particular, and something in you registered the difference.

You were registering a real absence rather than being oversensitive, and it is written that God searched a person out and knew them by name. The Spirit of God is the one who put a taste for that in you, and Psalm 139 is where the standard comes from.

And here is the part that takes the silliness off.

The reason a reference code stings is that you know what the other thing is like. A person who has never been searched out and known would not have felt anything at all that morning.

You have been ruined for impersonal answers by something genuinely good, and Scripture says thou hast searched me and known me rather than thou hast processed my request. The Holy Spirit is the one who has spoiled you for the other thing, and He did it on purpose.

The person who sent it is not the enemy

Let me deal with one thing before it takes root, because a week is long enough for it to start.

Somebody sent that reply. A person. Probably at speed, probably from a stack, probably with forty more behind it, and probably under an instruction not to give reasons.

They are not the thing that hurt you. The absence hurt you, and the absence has no author.

You have nothing to forgive anybody for here, and the written word puts the searching and knowing in God rather than in a system anywhere. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps a woman from assigning a face to a thing that had no face, and Psalm 139:1 is where the real address is.

And there is something practical in it too, which is what you do with your own people.

For twenty-something people, the office over there is this one. They ask, and somebody answers or does not answer, and that somebody is the woman reading this.

That week has told you exactly what a correct answer with nobody in it feels like on the receiving end. That is worth something, and it is worth more than the reason you were asking for.

You have been handed a piece of understanding you can use tomorrow, and it is written that being searched out and known is a different thing from being answered. The Holy Spirit is the one who turns a small hurt into something a woman can hand on, and He does that without wasting any of it.

Say the question out loud twice

So here is the thing to do and it takes about half a minute.

Say out loud the question you actually asked. The exact words. All eleven of them.

Then say it again, to God this time, in the same words.

You are taking a question to somewhere it will actually be received, and Psalm 139:1 says thou hast searched me and known me. The Spirit of God is the one who receives it, and there is nobody ahead of you.

There is a reason to use the same words rather than making it into a prayer.

The words you used were careful. You wrote them three times. There is a whole week of you in those eleven words, and saying them somewhere they are actually heard is what closes the loop that was left open.

You may not get the reason. That is fine. The reason was never the thing.

You have been heard by somebody who searched you out before you asked anything, and the written word never once required an answer for a person to be known. The Holy Spirit is the one who does the knowing part, and Psalm 139 is where He says so in the first line.

Then go back in and run the change the way it is written, which you were going to do anyway.