bathroom hook

I have a strong desire to help people, particularly those that I see making self-destructive choices…choices that not only take them into places that make their own lives harder, but also impact others as well, including me.  I’ve had incidents when I can so clearly see someone is being hampered by spiritual or psychological blindness that puts them on a spiritual island farther and farther from community and from God’s best for them. (Not that I have a clear picture of what God’s best would be, but it certainly isn’t this!)

When I wake up at two or three or four in the morning and those folks come into my thoughts, I can endlessly fret about the thing I could have said or even might still say that would help them change course instead of digging further into their entrenched positions or self-destructive patterns.

Sometimes my subconscious dream life does the work.  Years ago, I had a male friend who entered into an adulterous relationship with another woman I knew.  I dreamed that if he would just stop wearing yellow, everything would be all right.  It was my mind trying to exert control over an out-of-control situation.  I knew that I was powerless to change it.  No amount of “talking sense”, or in the case of my dream, talking nonsense, was ever going to change that situation that did indeed turn tragic, with guilt and abuse.

What I’ve been thinking lately is that in most situations, my words will have minimal effect, and may even make matters worse.  It’s as if I have a hook on the back of my bathroom door that has come loose from it’s anchoring.  The solution is not to hang more and more on that hook, or to pull on it with all my weight.  That is likely to destroy the door as well as dislodge the hook.  The hook needs re-anchoring by a professional who understands the mechanics of hooks and the composition of doors.  That is not me, and no amount of talking will make it me. 

Listening might, however.  Asking heartfelt questions, curious about how they feel and think, listening well, then quietly, prayerfully holding the person up to the loving person of Jesus, who is the expert healer, the ultimate trained professional, the designer of the human heart. 

Perhaps if we stop trying to hold people accountable before we hold them in prayer… or instead of trying to get them to change, holding them up to the author of change…we might actually see our friends take a step toward healing on their own.  We might even need to get out of the way.  Perhaps all of our efforts are more of an obstruction than we know.

Just a thought.

Love, Liz