I Apologize Before Anything Happens

You have said sorry four times before your coat is off.

Sorry we are late. Sorry, I brought the wrong thing. Sorry, I will move. Sorry. And nobody has said one word to you yet, and nothing at all has happened, and you are already twelve seconds into an apology for existing in a room.

It is so automatic that you have stopped hearing it. Somebody pointed it out once, years ago, in a kind way, and you apologized for that too.

And here is what is underneath it, which took you a long time to be able to say. You are apologizing in advance for something you assume is about to be your fault.

If what is going on in that room is not a habit but harm, if somebody there frightens you or hurts you, then the apologizing is a survival response and this article is not the first thing you need. Getting help from somebody qualified where you live comes first.

The charge that was never filed

Let me describe the shape of it, because seeing the shape is most of the work.

An apology is an answer to a charge. Somebody says you did a thing, and you say sorry, and the matter closes. That is how the mechanism is built.

What you have been doing is answering a charge nobody has made. And because no charge was made, the apology cannot close anything, so it has to be repeated, endlessly, for thirty years.

You have been answering a case that was never brought, and no apology on earth has ever once been able to settle a charge that does not exist. Romans 8:1 says there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, which is the written word closing the case in advance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a person able to stand in a doorway with their hands empty.

And there is somebody in that room who is worth thinking about here. Whoever taught you this, and somebody did, was not running a scheme. Very often it was a person who was frightened themselves, and who found that early apologies made rooms safer, and who handed you a survival skill sincerely.

She probably had her own reasons, and she is right about something you have never conceded to her.

You are able to name where this came from without building a case against anybody, and understanding a habit has never once required somebody to be blamed for it. The Spirit of God is what makes an origin story safe to look at, and it is written in Romans 8 that there is now no condemnation.

No condemnation

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1, King James Version)

Look at the word now, because it is doing a great deal of work in that sentence.

Not eventually. Not after everything is finally sorted out. Now, in the doorway, with your coat still on and the wrong dish in your hands. The verdict has already been given and it was not guilty, and it was given before you arrived.

Condemnation is a legal word. It means a sentence handed down after a case. And Paul says the case is closed and there is no sentence.

You are standing under a verdict that was settled long before you walked in, and no room you enter has ever once been able to reopen it. It is written in Romans 8:1 that there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, which is the written word finishing the trial, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a settled verdict something a person can feel in their shoulders.

And there is a phrase at the end that matters here. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. That is not a condition you have to satisfy first. It is a description of where a person who has received that verdict now lives.

You have been trying to walk into rooms after the flesh, which in this case means arriving with your own defense already prepared.

You have permission to walk in with no defense at all, and entering a room empty handed has never once been the same as entering it unprotected. The Spirit of God is the one who goes into that room ahead of a person, and Romans 8 puts the no condemnation before any instruction about how to walk.

What the apologies do to the room

Here is a thing nobody tells you, and it is worth knowing because it will help you stop.

The pre-apology does not put people at ease. It does the opposite.

When somebody arrives apologizing, everybody in the room has to do a small piece of work. They have to reassure you. They have to say it is fine, it is fine, do not worry. And they will do it warmly, because they love you, and it is still work, and it happens every single time you arrive.

So the thing you have been doing to make yourself less trouble has quietly been making you more.

You are welcome in that room without any preparation, and arriving plainly has never once put anybody out. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary hello possible, and it is written that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And there is a second thing, quieter and harder. Because you apologize for everything, nobody in that family can tell when you are actually sorry.

A real apology, when you owe one, arrives in exactly the same tone as the four you gave in the doorway. It cannot land. The currency has been spent.

You are able to keep the word sorry for the times you mean it, and saving an apology has never once been the same as becoming hard. The Spirit of God is what restores the weight to a word that has been worn smooth, and Romans 8:1 has already handled the general case.