A Better…Bittersweet Symphony
Yesterday I woke up early… and admittedly teared up a little to the text message…
“Visa came through over night”
A heaviness set in, that I knew I needed to process… and since then I’ve had a bittersweet couple of days.
Ya see…
I’ve been blessed enough to spend a lot of time pouring into a lot of people to varying degrees…pouring with the hopes that they could come into more freedom in the Lord than they, or others, thought possible for them.
Hoping…hoping they’d take some of the best and most godly parts of me and combine them with the most godly parts of them to be world changers who would go on doing so were I no longer around.
I’d like to think that I’m far from my end, but I have a hope that, even if I am… the fruit of my time isn’t, and I think that’s what I always want to strive for.
We’re told to count the costs of being disciples of Christ. Part of being a disciple is to make disciples.
This discipleship has costs. Each one different. Each one worth it.
Some of those costs are reasonably in our control… The time or money we sacrifice for example… but 3 in particular, are out of our control all-together.
When counting these costs it’s important to remember that you are directly the fruit of AT LEAST one other person’s obedience and steadfastness in the Lord, and indirectly the fruit of thousands that never knew you.
There’s the cost of “The Staying.”
This is when someone you love, care for deeply, and invest in, has either has no vision, no hope, or flat out chooses to stay in the place where they are with perceived inability, perceived lack of need, or a straight lack of desire to grow enough to change their actions. It’s tough to determine what these people need most. Is it a kick? or a hug? is it both? This will stretch your dependence on the Lord. When this cost comes you must live in the hope that this cost is temporary and the unseen fruit lies in their future. You know it doesn’t depend on you, that they must want it, and you don’t try to create a co-dependency, but you never give up.
There’s the cost of “The Leaving.”
This one has various looks, but if you’ve had the heart of a discipler long…you know it. This is when others no longer fully value what you have to offer, or at least not in the same way. Maybe they’ve grown lazy… or maybe it’s less menacing. Maybe it’s so scary to them, or over the top that they avoid and run. Or they just don’t think what you’re offering them will bring them any lift. They don’t need it or don’t want it, or at least they perceive that. In my experience the risk of this type of cost is greatest in one of 2 places…
- People at lower/entry levels of faith like the seed which sprouted quickly then withered.
- Those at intermediate levels of growth maybe only one or two steps behind you. These are those people that have experienced some level of growth, but at a point lose a degree of teach-ability as it pertains to you(and maybe others as well). A sense of arrival, or comparable arrival sets in them, and, if you let it, a sense of rejection or self-victimization at perceived lack of appreciation can set in on you.
This cost can be a difficult one because these are people who once leaned in deeply, but either suddenly or gradually faded away for one reason or another. It can often resemble a teenager who no longer feels the need for the guidance of a parent. They might even be snappy or disrespectful back at you. And they likely don’t even know what they’re doing. It means you need to reconsider your approach, but it doesn’t change anything though about your care for them.
Don’t falter. It’s not about you. The reward of giving what you have is worth it, you can’t help the rest. It doesn’t mean you chase them, but never give up on them.
They likely just need you to stay the course of caring about their lives enough to not need their teach-ability as it pertains to you. When time comes to pay this cost you’ve got to step into some of what Paul says about being all things to all people.
When the chips are down, be a person of follow through… as I believe one of my disciplers calls it “investment without expectation of relationship.” You don’t need people seeking out what you have to war for them in prayer. In 50 years, it’s these types of men and women they’ll remember, and hopefully will have imitated in their own discipleship of others.
Then there’s the cost of “The Going.”
This is perhaps the best and most bittersweet cost of them all.
We are asked to consider the cost, to pick up our cross and follow, but sometimes we must be prepared to see those we love pick up their cross and carry it across country …or the globe.
This is the cost that involves seeing people step into who they are, having dreams in the Lord, and being bold enough to chase them.
These people grow so near and dear to your heart because there’s something so refreshing about the heart bold enough, humble enough, and courageous enough to be teachable and bold and courageous enough to give those things a shot.
Sometimes their dreams and call grow so big or so far from the place you are that they must go. And, though they’ll always have a teachable heart toward you…It’s too small a thing for them to stay where you are. (I’d assume parents know this well).
People like these going into places is, at worst as good as you going there, because they’ve taken the best of them and the best of you and others in the Lord and lived their lives driven by that.
It’s quite likely that today I experienced and more deeply understood the cost of “The Going” than ever before.
Today a good man that I’ve known for quite a while, one of the best I’ve known, has left Gainesville, and is on his way back to Australia.
Is he perfect? Nope!
But… He’s been honorable, trustworthy, steadfast, a hard worker, and loyal through it all. He’s bold. He’s courageous.
There are things that he fears, but he’s not fearful.
He’s rich in knowledge, but he’s teachable.
He’s gifted, but he’s a giver.
He has grown into so much of what I could have wanted for him and more. Australia and that lady of his win this one. They are better for him going there.
I will miss my brother. But this is the best of farewells, because I have the utmost confidence that he will be a godly man in yet another land in desperate need of more like him.
And because I know that in the going… there’s a beauty great enough to leave even good things behind.
If you haven’t already, may you at sometime know the bittersweet joy of the cost of “The Going.”
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