Staying in My Lane

Brothers, Sisters, Family, and Friends,

It has been a few months since last I wrote. The last few months have been busy, but good. Volunteering with Radical Mission at our church twice a week has been amazing. God is blessing me with opportunities to be involved in His work in others lives...both in our church community and in our Clarksville community. I must tell you that working for God through Radical Mission is quite exhausting...mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. My days are filled with helping those who are unable to help themselves. There are so many who are poor, broken, and lost. It is quite overwhelming at times. My heart breaks for each of them, and I long to be able to snap my fingers and make everything better. But that is not my purpose, my job, or my lane (for all the military out there). I am called by Jesus to help those in need for the simple purpose of fulfilling His call to share His grace, mercy, love, and compassion with those He places in my path.

I sometimes get into trouble when I set my sights on goals, expectations, assumptions, and personal opinions. I am learning that sharing the compassion of Jesus is the only goal or expectation I should have. Because in reality (the one in which I have been actively involved for the last several months), many of those with whom we are sharing compassion stick around for a while until their human needs are met and then they just disappear from the Radical Mission radar. No more blip on our screen.

Some are so deep into addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, and various other things, that a honest, healthy relationship is just not possible at the early stages of our involvement in their lives. So I am lied to, manipulated, pushed around, and disrespected...simply because they are lost in a darkness and do not know the way out of it. So I embrace them knowing that I am taking part in a game of half truths and manipulation, but pretending not to know.

Then there are those who seem to get it that Radical Mission is not just extending an offering of food, shelter, counseling, etc., but that God is at work in their lives. They come to church once, twice, maybe for a few months. But then, they hit the wall of their addictions or other issues in their life and stop and retreat and hide. Because Satan tricks them into believing that they can never be any one but the slave to the world that they are. And I do not know where they are or who they are with or what they are doing...yet I know that they are not in a safe place or with a safe person or doing safe things with their time. All my time, heart, and mind that went into them...and seemingly nothing to show for it.

Then there are those who just blatantly take advantage of you. Allow me to share what happened to me last night at church. I was a greeter for Saturday Night Worship. Two minutes before service started a man shows up at the door. He kinda hesitated as if he really did not want to come into the building. He opened the door...I said, "hello, welcome"...He said, "Are you the pastor?"...I said, "no". Then he gave me the come here sign with his index finger. It was not a gesture of polite asking, but more of a demand. I came closer to the threshold of the door and reached out my hand to shake his. He shook my hand as I introduced myself, but instead of letting go immediately, he pulled me slightly to get me to come outside and said, "come out here for a minute I need to talk to you." So I went outside to hear what he had to say. But I must be honest I was not happy about it at this point. I already felt pushed and disrespected. He told me that he and his wife were having car troubles, they were not from this area, they had no money, and wanted us to put them up for a night at the Red Roof Inn. Just as his gesture was demanding, his tone in his speech and request was more that of someone who expected to get what he thought he deserved.

Normally, I would have said yes anyway. But we have not been able to put people up for the night for several weeks because we were out of money to do so. So I explained to him the situation. He was obviously not happy with my response and asked where the pastor was. I told him that the pastor was inside. He said, "go get him and bring out here, I want to talk to him, a person has got to have a place to sleep!" Again, a demand. I told him I would be happy to bring him to the pastor. So he and his wife followed me in and I introduced him to our senior pastor and went back to the door to greet.

A few minutes later, pastor, the guy and his wife came back around the corner. Pastor was still talking to the guy about having me set them up with a room at the Meadow Motel (a Motel with whom the church has an account for these sort of needs). The guy completely ignored and blew off pastor and walked out the door as pastor was still talking to him. I thought to myself, "who does this guy think he is?" He went to sit in his car, I never saw him again. His wife stayed and waited as I set them up with a room which required me to drive to the motel because the manager was not picking up the phone.

Upon my return to church, she asked me if the motel was a decent place. Her tone had a ring of, "I do not want to stay in some dump." I told her that the motel was alright and that it was a roof over their head for the night. My tone was as cordial as possible, but by this time I must admit I was quite angry and frustrated with the whole situation. She asked about food. I told her that I could give her lots of food from our Hope Pantry and that the rooms had microwaves in them. She said that she was thinking of something more immediate. I thought to myself, "What is more immediate than 60 seconds in a microwave?" I thought she did not want to have to cook anything for any amount of time, she did say that she had not eaten all day, so I told her we had some chips and snacks in the Hope pantry that she could eat right away. She said she needed something with more substance. I then realized she wanted me to hand her some cash so they could go to a restaurant. I told her that I can offer her anything that we have in our Hope Pantry. She said that they would come back if they could not get some food some other way.

That was the end of that opportunity to share compassion for the evening. Honestly, I felt bad about the whole deal. I did not deserve to be treated like that, pastor did not deserve to be treated like that, and if someone is really in need, then that person joyfully accepts whatever is offered, right?! And who does he think he is coming into the church and demanding service?!

As I was processing all of this, God showed up and spoke into my heart about a few things...this is what He said. He said, "emman, what made you feel disrespected, pushed around, taken advantage of?" I said, "People should not treat people like that, I do not deserve that, pastor did not deserve that." God said, "emman, you did not answer My question. Why do you think you should not have been treated like that. What inside you tells you that you are someone special, someone to be respected and treated rightly?" Then I got it...I said, "My pride Lord. My pride was hurt, stepped on, and all but demolished in that whole situation." Then God began to work on my heart and brought me to a place I needed to be.

He reminded me of His own Son, the One and Only Savior of the World, Jesus Christ. He reminded me Jesus is the Only One to ever walk this earth that truly deserved respect and admiration. The Only One who had the right to be prideful. He lived a perfect life despite unbelievable trials and temptations and a purpose in life that is heavy enough and scary enough to send the bravest, most faithful man running the other direction. Yet He not only suffered the physical pain of being whipped with a cat of nine tails, nails in His hands and feet, scorching in the hot middle eastern sun, and death on a cross which ends in asphyxiation resulting from the build up of carbon dioxide in His lungs because He no longer had the strength to exhale.

Leading up to that...in the moments just before the physical pain began, some things even worse happened. Jesus was betrayed by one of His own disciples, yet He loved him even at the moment the betrayer greeted Him with a kiss and the soldiers took Him away. He was denied by one of His closest disciples, Peter "The Rock", the one who had the faith on which Jesus said He would build His church. He was mocked, disrespected, and ridiculed by the roman soldiers after they beat His back and sides to a bloody pulp. The soldiers put a purple robe and a crown of thorns on Jesus and spit on Him.

And what did Jesus do? What was Jesus thinking? Did He come back at them and ask them "Who do you think you are? Do you not know who I am, I am the Son of God, You better respect me and treat me as I deserve!" No...Jesus,

"who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:6-8)

And Jesus did not just go to the cross with a silent, pious humility amidst a situation filled with such wrongs and evils. He went to the cross with the pure humility that comes from an overwhelming, unquenchable compassion for those who are lost...for the very people who betrayed, denied, beat, mocked, and spat upon Him. A longing for the soldiers that sat at the foot of the cross, on which He hung bleeding and gasping for air, gambling for ownership of His garments after He died, to come to know the Father through His death. With one of His dieing breaths He said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

Philippians 2:5 says, "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus."

I am called to be like Jesus...to have His humility, His compassion, His longing for the lost to come close to Him...without regard for myself, my own opinions, desires, needs, status, position, expectations, etc. It is about Jesus, nothing else, no one else. I embrace the community in which God has placed me with compassion merely for the sake of answering His call. Because in answering His call, a wonderful thing happens...He works in and through me to reach into others lives and give them the same grace and love which He gave me.

It is not always in His plan that I see the result of that grace and love, but it is His plan that I participate in the giving of it by pouring out, emptying myself...just as did my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is my lane and I am going to strive each and every day to stay in it. The rest is up to Him!

i am because He is,
emman