Pausing for a second in a futile attempt to regain the count, I stared blankly at the dusty shelves ahead of me. The staccato beep of a moving forklift echoed in the distance. The shelves seemed to grow taller and taller. Helping count inventory was the worst idea ever. Working extra hours completely uncompensated was not my idea of a good time. “Fark!” I muttered under my breath, as I couldn’t remember the number of t-shirts I had counted. Begrudgingly, I put everything back on the steel shelf and started over.
The good thing about mindless repetitive work is that it’s mindless repetitive work. The bad thing about mindless repetitive work is that it’s mindless repetitive work. The mind wanders and you start thinking about things you probably shouldn’t dwell on too much. Hitting play on the iPod nano tucked in my front pocket, the peaceful voice of a British seminary professor continued to articulate words that I knew that I needed to hear.
I must recognize that in my sinful heart lies the desire to love others in a way that will be at no cost to myself. It is so very easy to throw out platitudes and empty promises of prayer. I remember speaking to close friend of mine about a student he was discipling. The young student was so very difficult to deal with. The bitterness in the young man’s heart exhibited itself like venom in his words. This not only isolated the student within the college ministry, but after years of meeting up with the student, nothing appeared to have changed. I clearly remember my friend’s frustration and flabbergasted expression as he tried to convey the anguish within his heart.
The compassion he had for the student was evident. And yet, I detected another emotion. “We have tried everything, Richard. It is too much for us to bear. We must let him be.” The voice of resignation revealed scars from a very painful ministry. I do not criticize my friend’s decision. The difficulty of his situation is one that I cannot fully comprehend nor appreciate. However, it saddens me to see in others and in my own heart a disobedient unwillingness to love those who are difficult to love.
For us to genuinely bear the burdens of others (Gal 6:2), we cannot do so at a distance. It is impossible to counsel another and remain untouched. In this fallen world, the very encounter of people who have experienced immeasurable pain and torment, ought to change us irreparably. Recognizably, counseling itself not only changes the counselee, but also the counselor. It is ignorant of us to believe that we have the right to enter into the lives of others at the time that we choose and separate cleanly when we decide to. It is horrible to think that we have all been guilty of turning away someone in need in favor of our own comfort or convenience.
In a class taught at Covenant seminary about the life of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, Dr. Barrs relates the following experience:
Just as Francis had just had his three months of difficulty, of costly experience in Europe, those months in Philadelphia were a very costly time for Edith. She writes about how his mother wanted to have them, insisted on having them, but behaved all the time as if it were an imposition to have them. Francis' mother felt they should not go to Europe. In fact, she was "furious" about it -- that is the word Edith uses. She took her anger out on the girls all the time, her anger about them going to Europe. So Edith's work was cut out in keeping the girls out of her mother-in-law's hair, in doing everything she could to try and serve her, to help her take care of the home. She did everything she could to make life as pleasant as possible. She also created a little bit of time for her to study to be a secretary. This was because from then on she would be Francis' secretary as they went out. She had to learn shorthand and she had to learn typing. But every time she went into her room and closed the door and started working on it, her mother-in-law would just be really angry. She clearly regarded this as a total waste of time and thought that her daughter-in-law should have been doing something more worthwhile.
So it was a very, very difficult time. Edith says she lost weight during this time. If any of you have spent any time living with somebody who really is not happy to have you there but insists you ought to be, you will know how difficult it was. It was a very hard time. And again, Edith writes about that very helpfully on page 280. She says this, "Do we mean it when we say to God, 'Lord, I am prepared to take a low seat. I am prepared to serve somebody?'" Because she had said that, "I am prepared to go, take this time of not having an apartment of our own to go and be with my mother-in-law even though she is a difficult person. I am prepared to go and take that low seat and be a servant there." But we have to realize that when we pray like that, again there is a cost to bear. And then we will try to serve God with gladness in that situation rather than resent it the whole time. After all, it is an answer to our prayers. We have said, "Lord, I am willing to do this." Then when we do it, it will have a cost to it. God does not automatically change the difficult person just because we have said we are prepared to go and try to help them. The person often stays difficult, as the person did in this particular situation. But again, there is a very important spiritual lesson there. If we say to God, "I am prepared to be a servant," we had better mean it, because He will test us, and we will be refined by it. Being a servant like that is never a pleasant experience; it is always costly. We have to work, then, at maintaining a mentality of serving God and serving the difficult person willingly and cheerfully rather than angrily and resentfully.
These words are particularly convicting as I have found myself resentful and frustrated about particular circumstances in my life. There are moments where it pains me greatly to place the good of others ahead of my own desires. Self-sacrifice is never second nature. Our sinful hearts turn to self-preservation and self-gratification at every presented opportunity. When we deceive ourselves that we are innately good, we forget that a willful decision to love must always be made and a cost must always be paid. A genuine desire to love others will lead one to find a progressive journey and the continual widening of one’s heart.
It is an undeniable fact that all forms of ministry come at a cost. It is not a cost that is to be carried by a select few (pastors, counselors, seminarians, deacons, elders…), but rather the entire body of Christ. As his ambassadors, we will find ourselves free from all, but a servant to all, that we might win more (1 Cor 9:19). The cost of such of life is shown in the dichotomy that Paul lists in his second letter (2 Cor 6). It is not enough for us to say that Christ supplements our efforts to love others. Rather we must recognize that we are able to do so only because he has enabled us to do so. In our pursuit of loving others, our master’s yoke is easy and our master’s burden is light not because of any intrinsic quality in ourselves. Rather the King of all kings has paid the ultimate cost. And...I should be sleeping.
