"I'll Try" Is Not an Answer

Justin Atherton was on a phone call with his then chief of police, his 14-year-old daughter sitting in the truck next to him. The chief rambled for almost twenty minutes and said almost nothing. When the call ended, Justin’s daughter looked at him and said, “That was the most inefficient conversation I’ve ever heard.”

Then she asked, “When are you going to quit?”

She heard what most adults have learned to ignore. A man in leadership using a lot of words to avoid being pinned to any of them.

Justin spent 20 years in law enforcement. He recently retired and wrote a book called How to Get to the Damn Point. The title is the message. Most of the time, when people are vague, they are not confused. They are protecting themselves.

“When you can’t give clear, concise communication, sometimes it’s on purpose,” Justin says. “It’s because I don’t want to be held accountable for what I say.”

That sentence sits heavier than it sounds.

Think about the words a man reaches for when he is trying to look like he is moving without actually committing to move. “I’ll try.” “I’m planning to.” “I want to.” “We’ll see.” Justin calls these stop-action verbs. They sound like progress. They function as escape hatches.

A man says he wants to lead his family. He plans to get back in the Word this year. He’s trying to get back in shape. He’s going to start praying with his wife. The language is soft on purpose. Soft language cannot be measured. Soft language cannot fail. It also cannot deliver anything.

Justin offers a test. Walk up to your wife and say, “I’ll try to be faithful to you.” Or, “I plan to be faithful to you.” Listen to how it lands. There is only one version of that sentence she will accept. “I will.”

The same is true for every commitment that actually matters.

Scripture is direct about this. *James 5:12 says, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.”* Christ said the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. Anything more than yes or no, He said, comes from the evil one. That is strong language for a reason. The man who hides behind “maybe” eventually hides everywhere.

Clarity is a form of obedience. It refuses to leave a back door open. It says what it means and lets the chips fall. It takes the weight of the word seriously, because words shape both the man who speaks them and the people who hear them.

The cost of vague language at home is the same cost it carries on a SWAT team or in a board room. People stop trusting what is said. They stop expecting follow-through. Eventually they stop asking, because they have learned the answer is going to be a sentence with no edges.

A man who is marching forward speaks in language that can be checked. He says yes when he means yes. He says no when he means no. He stops dressing up indecision as politeness.

Audit the words. The ones used with God in prayer. The ones used with a wife at the kitchen table. The ones used with a son who asks if Dad will be at the game. The hesitations are not innocent. They are the place a man hides when he is unwilling to be measured.

Stop hiding. Say the point. Then stand on it.

Watch the full conversation with Justin Atherton on the March or Die YouTube channel and read the companion article on MarchOrDie.com