When the Devil Opens Doors

I over-commit chronically.  I'm like that trashbag that you buy thinking it'll fit only to realize it's a tad bit to small.  Still, you stretch it over the edge of the can, and try to use it.  But it's just asking to bust.  I cannot do everything I want to do.  I try, and it leaves me exhausted and self-condemned.  I didn't love everyone well.  I ignored that phone call.  I didn't give them all my attention, because I was juggling my dinner and my blog and texting a friend in a rough spot.  I sign up for it all, and bear the weight, and am borne down.

There are two problems here.  One is that I bear others' burdens.  I make their sanctification my responsibility.  I try to be their Jesus, their Spirit.  I advise, encourage, counsel, comfort, challenge, serve, etcetera, which, yes, we are all called to do.  But I feel responsible for their outcome.  I carry too much responsibility for those around me, and that is the first problem.

But there is another problem.  Namely, that there are too many needs.  There are too many people who need to be encouraged, loved, counseled,  comforted, challenged, served, etcetera.  And I see a lot of them.  The girls at Kudu who walk by drunk, doing cartwheels and flashing the street- they need someone to share good news with them.  The old man who lives on the corner alone needs someone to drink a beer with him and ask him about his life.  The guy wrestling with pornography and faith needs a counselor.  The woman whose mother in the hospital needs relationship.  And I cannot do it all.  I will try to do half.  And I will become exhausted, and I will take time away from listening to the Spirit, from silence, from waiting, and pour it into others.  Which is not wrong, is it?  I'm just loving other people.  There will always be time to seek God later.  It's an easy thing to put off.

Yet this line of thinking is simply off:
If Jesus is my first love, then He should be my first priority.
If all that I do of worth (even loving) is determined by listening to the Father, it should be practiced and waited on.
The verse that says 'seek God while He may be found' hints that it may not always be easy (as we find in the desert times of life).
Even Jesus prayed for more workers.  He couldn't do it all, as He limited himself to human form.

Jesus could do miracles because of the presence of the Spirit in Him.  We have the same Spirit, the same power and strength.   We will run and not grow weary, not grow faint.  Yet even Jesus took time away, evading the crowds.  Was there more work to be done?  Yes.  Would more people have benefited from His involvement in their lives?  Yes.  But His calling was to trust the Father and follow Him.  And the Father didn't always want Jesus engaged with the people.  He needed space, solitude, prayer, even with the Spirit.

Jesus didn't fix everyone all the time.  Instead, He trusted the Father to do as He saw fit.  He knew His mission.

It is more important for me to know the leading of the Spirit, the heart of the Father, the voice of the Shepherd, than it is for me to try to love everyone I meet.  I hate that, and yet am freed by it.

Sometimes the appropriate response to an open door is... to walk away.  Because it may be a distraction from what God really wants from us.  Spirit, I ask for Your discernment, Your wisdom, and for a confidence in Christ for myself and for those I meet.  He is faithful, and God is love, and that is enough.