You see, I’m really busy a lot of the time so I can’t hang out with you.
You see, when I say I’m really busy, I really mean that 50% of the time I’m working, and the other 50% I’m not doing anything productive at all.
You see, when I say I’m too busy to hang out with you, I really mean that I’d rather do something else.
You see, I’m sort of a jerk.
Hi everyone, I’m Faith and this is something I’ve just discovered about myself.
This semester, I’ve decided to change. One of the downfalls of having an independent spirit is that you thrive on being alone. You actually enjoy it. You love it. You love spending time with yourself and don’t understand why people hate being alone.
There is just one little problem . . . . people are kind of important.
Can we just all let out a huge groan? UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.
I know.
One of my absolute favorite movies is About a Boy. It’s about a man who loves himself. He doesn’t like to hang out with people, unless it’s to be alone with women. One day, he meets a lonely little boy who decides to hang out with him every day after school. It sounds creepy, but I promise it isn’t. This little boy changes his life because he shows him that life is better spent in community. No man is an island. Anyway, it’s a lovely movie with British people, singing, love, suicide, Hugh Grant, and I highly recommend you watching it.
Most every day, I can relate to the main character, thinking my life is an island and it is AWESOME.
Then, some lonely person comes in and decides to, unbeknownst to them, change everything.
I realize that there is more to life than, ahem, what I experience.
Just recently, I have found myself surrounded by people who are looking for someone to share life with. They need help. They need someone to listen. They need to know that everything is going to be okay. For some reason, God has flooded my life with people who are in need of a friend, and when they speak to me about it, I wonder, “Why me? Aren’t there tons of believers in this world who can help them?”
Instead, I see injustice that people turn a blind eye to. Instead, I see needs not being met. And I do not have a lot to give, but I can give my time, just a few minutes even, to help.
Oftentimes, I think of Jesus in Matthew 9:35-38 who spent his days healing the sick and preaching the good news. I imagine him being tired and weary from laying hands on hundreds of people a day, his voice being shot out from preaching loudly. Yet, he never stopped. He woke up in the mornings to pray and spent the rest of his days doing what the Father called Him to do. Even when he tried to get away from the crowds to be alone for a bit, the people kept flooding him.
They were in need.
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matthew 9:37-38
Today, I feel that verse. I wonder why there aren’t more people helping the homeless, or freeing the millions of slaves in the world. I wonder why youth are struggling alone with depression, and why widows in nursing homes spend their last days without family visiting them. Honestly, it just gets me frustrated. Mostly because I want to help EVERYONE and be EVERYWHERE, but I can only help a few. We should never let the overwhelming needs around us grow too strong that instead of helping a little, we don’t help at all.
I come across a lot of critics who are always saying, “This ministry should have ________.” “This school should have _______.” “This world needs more of ________.” And they get angry because nobody is starting something they want to be apart of. My question to those people is always, “Well, why don’t YOU start it?”
Why don’t you? Why don’t I?
The Lord is asking us, just as he asked Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
Instead of saying, “I’m kind of too busy to go, I’m kind of too busy to hang out with that person, I’m kind of too busy to meet that need” may our answer be: “Here am I. Send me!”
Faith
faith goes to college 