I had to call a woman the other day for a pretty simple church matter. I had only ever talked to her once. When I called, she had been crying. She's going through a really bad spot in her life right now and the burden was just overwhelming. You can tell she's desperate and simply hurting in nearly every way.
I had forgotten to call her two days running now, so I couldn't help but think that God must have had me call at that moment for a reason. I must have been there so do something. I don't know what.
I froze. I couldn't think of anything to say. I had absolutely nothing to offer her. I wanted to help, to fix some small part of what was happening. I felt that I should be able to offer some kinda of relief from a least a portion of her burden. But I had nothing.
This really bothered me. I'm called to pastor and this has to be a huge part of pastoring. What do you do when people come to you and you feel helpless.
The only thing I could think to do was to offer to pray for her. Now I know the power of prayer and I've seen prayers answered in very awesome ways. Prayer is a very valid and probably the best thing we can do, especially if we don't have anything else we could do.
I'll admin though, that seemed like such an empty thing to say. So many Christians will say, 'I'll pray for you.' and you wonder if they ever did. So while we did pray for her, I feared that it would just sound like a quick way off the phone.
So I shared this last night at our men's group and the best answer came out. It's not my job to have the answers or solutions for her. I do not have that responsibility. That's God's job. So my job is to point her to the Father. I can offer to pray with her, right then, and together we can take her burdens to God.
Now God may lay on me to do something more to help. That's fine, but that comes God. I'd be doing something He has led me to do, not something out of my own feeling of obligation.
That really made me feel a lot better and took a lot of the fear and burden from me. I love this group.
I had forgotten to call her two days running now, so I couldn't help but think that God must have had me call at that moment for a reason. I must have been there so do something. I don't know what.
I froze. I couldn't think of anything to say. I had absolutely nothing to offer her. I wanted to help, to fix some small part of what was happening. I felt that I should be able to offer some kinda of relief from a least a portion of her burden. But I had nothing.
This really bothered me. I'm called to pastor and this has to be a huge part of pastoring. What do you do when people come to you and you feel helpless.
The only thing I could think to do was to offer to pray for her. Now I know the power of prayer and I've seen prayers answered in very awesome ways. Prayer is a very valid and probably the best thing we can do, especially if we don't have anything else we could do.
I'll admin though, that seemed like such an empty thing to say. So many Christians will say, 'I'll pray for you.' and you wonder if they ever did. So while we did pray for her, I feared that it would just sound like a quick way off the phone.
So I shared this last night at our men's group and the best answer came out. It's not my job to have the answers or solutions for her. I do not have that responsibility. That's God's job. So my job is to point her to the Father. I can offer to pray with her, right then, and together we can take her burdens to God.
Now God may lay on me to do something more to help. That's fine, but that comes God. I'd be doing something He has led me to do, not something out of my own feeling of obligation.
That really made me feel a lot better and took a lot of the fear and burden from me. I love this group.
2 comments:
Prayer is the answer. Sometimes people just want someone to listen. Usually when something bad is going on they need an emotional outlet. Ask some probing questions and let the conversation go from there. She'll probably do most of the talking after a while anyway.
Tough lesson to learn but a valuable one nonetheless. Just like you can share someone's burden but you can't carry it; they have to.
After my father passed away, during his showing, one of our pastors and a dear friend of mine simply hugged me, said he loved me and cried along with me. It was the most comforting thing anyone had said or done that evening.
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