It was an opportunity.
She needed a place to stay. We had room.
What we didn’t have a lot of: margin. Energy. Time. Cash.
And as I heard more details about her story, something niggled at me. Our family’s weaknesses seemed like a poor fit for her needs.
When I got honest with myself, it didn’t seem something I could manage well: loving her and loving my family well at the same time.
But what I hate to say, almost always, is no.
When discerning God’s call, it’s easy to look at fun or less necessary aspects of our life and think, I could just do less of that if I took on this one wonderful thing. And maybe you’re the kind of person who could!
Yet in my own life, when I’m honest, that’s not where the toll is subtracted from.
I pay from my “sunny mood with my kids” account. My “graciousness” ledger. My diligence and vigilance in their lives and others’. My energy to love on friends or my husband. It means that I win less of my children’s hearts–critical when it comes to gaining passport into their lives.
Romans 12:9 hits me between the eyeballs like a rogue tennis ball: “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). Basically, overcommitment means that I love less well and with less joy.
Discerning God’s will: What’s “big faith” really look like here?
But wait! There’s more!
My husband, quite gently and with much wisdom and compassion, once put it this way: “I want you to know that sometimes your overcommitment affects how the Gospel is played out in our home.”
Ouch. But yep. It’s a version of Luke 9:25: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”
Read: My kids don’t see the same version of Jesus when I’m giving beyond the good works He’s prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). (My mom wisely taught be to pray that I’d do just those good works–no greater, no less.)
When I’m overcommitting, often there’s a lack of faith that God can do what I don’t have capacity to do. There’s a lack of trust and reliance upon the Body of Christ that can pitch in when one of us sees a need.
I occasionally act as if God desperately needs me, and only me. Rather than working from peace and faith, occasionally I work out of fear, wringing my hands over problems.
Or perhaps a sense of achievement, or being “that” self-sacrificial person, or FOMO, lash my back. My lack of a healthy “no” often stems from greater desires linked to my own identity.
At times it can be a large view of myself, and small view of God.
And there’s even a part of me that lacks humility. Further up there in Romans 12, I read I’m urged not to think of myself more highly than I ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.
Folks, my teenagers will happily confirm: there is a sizable gap between the woman I’d like to be, and the woman I am. My dreams, even for the Kingdom of God, will always surpass my ability and capacity.
What’s it look like to get out of the boat?
But figuring out whether I’m having small faith by undercommitting or overcommitting feels challenging when it’s people munching at the white space on my calendar. People with very real needs. Pain. Longing. Hope.
But need does not always constitute a calling.
Sometimes the need does constitute the call! It jolts awake my slumbering, callous indifference. Pries its fingers from my tightly controlled schedule. Presents itself at my gate, and I have a choice to turn it away or to welcome it in and share what I have.
Discerning God’s will means putting one leg, then the other over the side of the boat, already (check out Matthew 14:22-23). It means living a God-sized life of courage rather than one limited by what I can see.
In this post, I’m fighting a healthy fear of undermining or throwing into doubt God’s perfect orchestration of circumstances. I fear giving apathy and laziness another excuse in our quite-human brains and stealthy hearts, always hunting a crafty reason for ourselves not to come and die.
No matter how much we give, selfishness exists always as a profound pull. Jesus came so that “those who live might no longer live for themselves” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
Paul himself questions, How are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? i.e., need is often a part of our call. Fulfilling your role matters.
And Isaiah 58 exhorts us to “pour yourself out for the hungry”–i.e., spend yourselves on these people! Live poured out!
Discerning God’s will means doing the math
Still, Jesus’ words ring true: For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
Believing every need is mine to bear would result in some highly faulty math.
One of the most disheartening slices of our years in a developing country–or in any lifestyle of helping others–may remind one of Whack-a-Mole. As soon as you conquer one presenting problem with that big, furry mallet, another rears its taunting, plastic little head.
Opportunities, in truth, are everywhere.
I tend to be a “help, then ask questions” kind of person. But I’ve had a lot to soak up from my husband and his wise, thoughtful, probing questions. They’ve saved our family from a lot of hurt not only to ourselves, but to the people I’m hoping to “help.”
No more keenly did I become aware of this than when we were knee-deep in the adoption process, which we eventually, painfully decided against.
While there is something truly beautiful and faith-filled in spontaneously helping–Here am I! Send me!–there is also great beauty in wise, well-considered steps of faith.
A faith-produced action may look the same as one fear borne. In discerning God’s will, will my decision to respond to an opportunity formed from fear–or faith in the greatness of our God?
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Memos to myself: On the dangers of overcommitment
