Heroes Do Not Apply!

We must be equipped and prepared to respond with wisdom and understanding when called on to be a comfort to those in despair. What we often find difficult to reconcile in our minds is that the key to their healing and deliverance is not dependent on what we say or do. It is dependent on what the Spirit says to them and does in them. Our role is often to simply be there; to be a concerned and loving friend. Henri Nouwen says it so well. “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”

The problem is we all know enough to give advice to those who are hurting and in despair. Some of us have spent considerable time in study and preparation to always have the right answer in every situation. While this is not a bad thing, it is easy to start believing our answers are THE answers; that what we know is sufficient, and actually required, for others to solve the problems of their lives. After we fail at this a few times, we walk away saying this failure was the result of the other person’s refusal to respond or change, yet knowing all along our advice and counsel was totally insufficient. The result? We just give up and stop caring and stop ministering, and eventually just stop loving. The joy of being used by God has now been replaced by the spiritual and emotional destitution of trying to be God.

If this describes you, congratulations! You have now successfully completed the most important training God could ever give us. You have walked through His boot camp that teaches us we are only clay in His hands molded regularly into the instrument He can use to touch people in specific times and in specific situations. You have learned that kingdom work is not about you. You have learned that dying is living; that giving in to the Spirit is the opposite of giving up on what God has called you to do.

God is not asking us to be heroes—Satan is. No one can honestly relate to a mythical hero created by Hollywood or video games, and no one can relate to us when we have elevated ourselves to hero status. They relate to us when we relate to them. Do you want to change lives? Stop thinking it is you who must do it. You will start to see miraculous events unfold all around you and know the unspeakable joy of being fully in His service just as He created you to be. Get up every morning proclaiming less of me and more of you God and you will find a fresh purpose for living and loving you never thought possible.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares. –Nouwen

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  –Proverbs 18:24