Really God? Thats TMI

Entirely Too Much Information

The other day I put an address in my phone’s GPS and it didn’t simply tell me where to go, it gave me three choices of routes and time estimates of each. I thought, “I wish God did it that way!” I could give Him a future I wanted and wait for Him to shoot me back three routes and to highlight the quickest one with the least amount of potholes. Of course, God’s not concerned with the quickest or the easiest, but with that pesky personal growth thing. The problem is that when you chart a path based on personal growth, the tracks tend to look more like hurricane spaghetti lines than a route to your local Kroger. Filled with delays and detours that stretch our patience to the limit. Sometimes, after following the Lord over countless switchbacks and unknown trails, just when you think that you might be stranded in the wilderness forever, you top a hill and find, incredulously, that He has brought you right back to where you started. Yet, when you stare out over that familiar landscape something reverberates differently. The people and buildings are the same but there’s a nagging something that’s different. Something that you just can’t put your finger on. Everything looks the same, but at the same time, everything looks different!

That’s where I’ve been lately.

If you run from Jesus long enough, you're going to develop some sinful habits. And I ran from Jesus for a very long time, so naturally my normal outlook was far removed from the one we’re called to embrace as followers. There is little doubt that I knew a lot more about the devil’s business than I did about God’s. And most assuredly I possessed nothing near what you would call concern for my fellow man. Certainly not the ones who didn’t look, talk, or act like me. 

This all came to my attention because, thanks to all your prayers, I started a new job last week and as usual, God had ideas that I never saw coming. I spent most of my career in the used car business but after my conversion and getting out of prison, I thought, “Surely the Lord isn’t going to want me back in the used car industry with its terrible reputation of dishonesty and deception.” Not to mention that I had a tremendous amount of trepidation at the thought of it. Well, low and behold when I topped that last hill behind Jesus, what did I see before me but a car dealership. After all the we-don’t-hire-felons rejections from the past few months, the welcome in the car business was surprisingly painless.

After one week of work, I can tell you that the car business is the same. The cars and processes and people are all the same. But strangely, despite the apparent sameness…… something has felt different.

I thought maybe it was the fact that I’m different. There is no doubt of that. You simply cannot follow Jesus without a distinct and noticeable change in your life. It was certainly required in my life. But somehow my internal changes didn’t seem to be enough to cause that differentness feel of the car business.

It fell on me later that this mystery difference is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit but it’s not a change…. it’s an addition!

And oh, what an addition it is! It’s terribly befuddling to realize that the Holy Spirit has suddenly gifted you a big portion of empathy. In the blink of an eye, it suddenly permeates everything you do. Webster defines empathy as the action of vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. When I read that I thought, “that’s it, that’s exactly what it’s like.” And I’ve got to say, it feels like WAY too much information. We all go through life with some nice comfy distance between us and people outside our little groups, so it’s traumatizing when the Holy Spirit suddenly expands that group to everybody you meet! And when it’s like that, empathy just isn’t much fun! I keep thinking the Holy Spirit must have accidentally given me a grown-up dose instead of an eye dropper full to get me started. It really takes my breath to imagine what Jesus must feel like with His colossal capacity for empathy.

It shouldn’t be any kind of surprise since throughout the Bible God has consistently implored us to help the poor and people-in-need during our time here. Turns out that nothing is quite as good of a catalytic agent for giving as a good dose of empathy. Empathy will have you itching to empty your pockets to help people.

My new job requires me to slow down and actually talk to people about their needs and difficulties in their lives. A steady stream of youngsters with crooked teeth and hopeful eyes are a burden on an empathy filled follower of Jesus. And it really brings into focus the struggles of people in this broken world today and how pitifully few are calling on Jesus for help. In the end, some I can help and others I can’t….with an automobile that is.

But all I can point toward Jesus……All I can treat like Jesus would……All I can lift up in prayer… To all I can be a light for the Lord. Yes, I can do all that, but I wonder if that’s enough? Is empathy without action a follower’s path? I don’t think so. I think when followers of Jesus see a need, we are to do everything we can, with everything we have, until it hurts. We don’t talk about it much these days but it’s got to cost you to honor and obey God, because faith that costs you nothing isn’t worth anything. Even God sacrificed what was most precious to Him, in order to save you and me.

In the end, if we won’t help, who will?

Keep Following!