23 Oct we can’t save them…
“We can’t save them from themselves.”
The conversation carried on, but the words resounded, reverberated, and bounced off the walls of my heart for the foreseeable future.
I was talking with a colleague about the work we do, about how we have a front row seat to destruction and heartache. I was whining about sitting with clients at a crossroads and clearly seeing the two paths in front of them. One leads to destruction, addiction, chaos, and heartbreak. The other is equally as challenging if not more so initially, but has the hope of less destruction, less chaos and maybe even less heartbreak. I lamented, “I just want to shake him. Flip him upside down on his head and shake until he gets it.”
“Emily, we can’t save them from themselves. All we can do is present what we see, what we know, and stand with them for as long as they ask and allow us to.”
Heading home later, I mulled over her words and I was reminded of another conversation I had weeks ago. It was about God and the question of how a good, loving, kind God could allow such pain and suffering to come to the world of people He supposedly loves.
My heart aches every time I stand in the middle of this conversation. The first time I was confronted with this question was in graduate school when I took a full semester long class specifically related to this tension.
Each week was filled with discomfort. Sometimes people would cry. Often people would become angry, overwhelmed by the incomprehensible dichotomy of a God too big to comprehend, yet still intimate enough to know. We could not wrap our heads around it. It was too much to try to comprehend. And most of us had already had relationships with God for a long time.
This time the conversation was different though. There were people who knew of God, but didn’t necessarily believe in Him. People who had once believed in a God and a saving Son, but life had hurt them, left them face down in the dirt in their own pool of sweat, blood, and tears.
Now they were here questioning. How could it be? How could He be so loving, yet still let all this happen? Look at our world. Look at the global suffering. Look at the pain of Jesus! How can it be?
I think again of my client, one specifically. I had looked into his eyes and all but pleaded for the choice in front of him. It’s up to you, but this is how I see it, knowing the entire time that it did not matter at all what I said. It did not matter what I said at all. I could give every sob, sad, hideous story of destruction and he would choose as he wanted.
Then I think of God, loving us, watching us grow—all but pleading with us to choose better, to choose more, to choose Him—yet we do what we want.
Right?
We believe we are above the norm, we are stronger, we know better, we are the “exception.” Whatever the case may be, we probably know better. History is not our own, research does not know us specifically, nor our own, unique story. So we choose. We power forward, marching to the beat of our own heart. My hunch is…usually we know. Somewhere way down deep, we know it’s not right. We know something feels off. But we are either so comfortable with that nagging feeling or so afraid of it that we charge ahead—seeking whatever it is that we are convinced will save us. Control. Sex. Alcohol. A marriage. A career. A status. Drugs. Making others happy. Having a child. We go, go, go, go…until we land face down in the dirt in our own pool of sweat, tears, and blood.
(And then we blame the One who loved us enough to let us go.)
I cannot possibly wrap my head around who God is and how or why He allows or does not allow what He does in this world. I will not pretend to know, to get it completely. What I do know is this: love does not force itself upon you. Love does not shackle you to it’s rules and regulations. It will not handcuff you to it’s side in order to keep you safe.
Love says, “I love you. I love you. I love you. And I will love you. Forever. Forever. Forever. But I will not make you stay. I will not keep you. I will go with you and I will be with you, but I will not force myself into your world. I will not save you from yourself every single time. Because I will not force you to let me. I will whisper: Here I am. Stop. You don’t have to. There is a better way. I love you. You are worth more. You are forgiven. I love you. I do not hate you. I cannot hate you ever. I have not betrayed you. I am here. Anytime you want to stop and turn and pause you can. But I will not, cannot force you to choose me. I love you. I am here. But I will not force you to choose me.”
And so here we sit: in a world where I have to have ugly, gritty, disgusting, overwhelmingly painful conversations about addiction, drugs, alcohol, abuse, assault, confusion, chaos, pain, and suffering daily. In a world where that is a possibility. Destruction, hatred, ugly, unspeakable acts are a possibility because I cannot save you from yourself. God can save you from yourself, but will not force Himself upon you.
It is the very nature of love that prohibits it from controlling you. It is the very definition of love that keeps it from forcing you to choose the right, best path.
We cannot force those we love to into anything. We cannot force them into better. We cannot choose for them. And how much more loving is the God of the universe than any of us will ever be?
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