Shifting the Weight

It's been a couple weeks of navigating tough things. Not tough things that are directly in my own life, but the challenges and heartbreaks and sadness of others. From people losing children to dark valleys in marriages to depression to hopelessness to people out of work to divorces to financial crises, about every day and a half or so a new weight on behalf of someone I care about deeply has come along. It has felt a bit surreal because, honestly, my life is a relative sea of calm at the moment. It isn't always like that, but it is for the moment.

I am taking the quiet in my life to pray and carry to the throne regularly these dear people I love. Each person that has been transparent with me has felt like a gift I was entrusted with by God to bring before him, seeking his healing and touch. The operative word in that last sentence would be "his".

Kathie's typical modus operandi: I am such a little fixer, helper, peacemaker. It comes from the part of me that likes the water smooth, that likes everyone happy and well. What can I do to make things better for you, eh? Of course, you want to be happy, but I want you to be happy, too, 'cause then I am happy. Get it?

Unfortunately, my M.O. tries to insert me into the middle of things I have no control over. I cannot make different decisions for people, heal deep hurts, bring extraordinary mercy, or provide inexplicable grace that allows people to navigate and even blossom in and after the worst things they can imagine actually happen to them.

And I cannot change the people around them, who love them so much, but, alas, often those closest to us understand us the least. I know I fall into this category sometimes, too. Well-intentioned people who want us to be safe and sane, who cannot always hear the way a so-not-safe-and-sane Jesus calls us to follow. And that following looks so very different from how our loved ones would do it.

I met with a man the other day who has an amazing story of how God has been calling, is calling, and is preparing the way for him to minister in India. He is a successful business owner. People he trusts and loves are saying things like, "But your business is what you're good at. God gave you success there. Why don't you just keep running your business and give to missions in India? Why don't you just use what God has given you already to fill this calling you feel?"

My heart broke when I heard him share this. I totally understand the concern, the hesitance, the struggle, from people you treasure and trust who do not hear a call the same way you do. And I can't find anything about God that calls us to follow in logical ways, so trying to explain to others what he whispers to you is so very hard. Can you picture each of the disciples explaining to their parents and employers the logical, safe, rational reasons that Jesus outlined to all of them when he called them to follow him?

I hope you can't, because from what I can see, no such thing happened.

He said, "Follow me." Not, "Follow my plan for you that will make sense to the world the moment you speak, the moment you act, the moment you demonstrate how you love me."

I cringe when I hear the phrase, "Why don't you just..."

God is not a god of just. Just enough provision, just enough hope, just enough grace, just so you feel comfortable, just so you aren't embarrassed, just so your loved ones aren't uncomfortable, just so everyone gets you.

He doesn't need people to get you. He longs for them to get Him. Watch for Him, see Him, need Him, be amazed by Him, be drawn to Him. To see in overabundance how he loves and provides for and cares for and transforms you. In ways that make no logical, safe, rational, outlined sense.

So, Kathie is praying, sympathizing, listening, but not fixing. And I pray that those people, those gifts of prayer needs that God has brought to me, are hearing, feeling, responding to the Spirit's call to not just follow, but to hurl the nets away and chase after Him in the draw of overabundance. And that the overabundance of love, healing, change, tenderness, reality, transparency, wholeness, and restoration touches sweetly all those people who observe the transformation in the ones they love.