Invitation

The Help Your Weary Soul Longs For

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If you asked me five years ago, I naively would have told you that I didn't struggle with control. I would have said that I was a fully surrendered disciple of Christ. I mean, seriously — as long as everything went exactly the way I wanted it to, I was totally flexible.

I didn't intend to manipulate God by engaging in the most futile act known to humankind: trying to control one's life trajectory. And it's not that I wanted to control other people either. (Okay, so I might have been that take-charge kid in your high school class who led all the group projects and told you what to do — then resented everyone for not pulling their weight.)

Mostly, I wanted to control myself. If I ever had high expectations of anyone, it was of me. I wanted to present the self-assured, together version of my whole being. Which means I craved control over my face, my emotions, my body, my food, my words, my house, my schedule, my yard, my future.

My preference was a tidy, predictable, safe life where no one got hurt, where my kids remained in one piece, where there was no pain for anyone ever again, amen. My appetite for painlessness had me constantly minding the store. I hung on tight, so I could get life right.

Yet those old systems of coping weren't working.

Not long after I hit forty, I couldn't shake the truth that something needed to change. My desire to obsessively orchestrate what happened next was burning me out.

I ran out of gas.

Maybe the empty tank was God's way of bringing me to a dead stop, so I would finally pay attention. It worked. God got my attention, and maybe he's trying to get yours too.

Imagine that it's you who's run out of gas. Maybe that doesn't take much imagining after all, because like me, you're tired of trying to hold it together. You want to keep it all under control, but things aren't working out the way you planned.

If that sounds like you, picture it unfolding like this:

You're at the wheel, driving on fumes, pushing hard to get where you need to go because everyone is counting on you. The needle drops below E, and your car sputters to a stop, out of gas, at the edge of a dirt road. You are miles from where you want to be.

You rest your head on the steering wheel. It was only a matter of time. Here you are now. Empty.

But you are not alone.

Along comes a man, walking down the road toward you. The closer he gets, the more familiar he seems — the warm expression on his face, the worn hands, the creases around his eyes. You roll down the window, and he gives you an invitation, rolled up like a scroll. He waits, hands on his hips, smiling, because he's finally got your attention.

The hand-lettering reads: "You are cordially invited to embrace a new way of living. Help is here."

Sitting at the wheel, you feel your heart beat fast, as if a geyser has erupted inside your chest. You rarely ask for help, though let's be honest, you've needed help for a long time.

The man's eyes twinkle when he tells you that he can help you slow your frenetic pace to discover the life you were actually made for — a life of meaning, depth, and purpose.

Who wouldn't want this?

Your soul begs you to say yes. Because everywhere you go these days, you're pushing too hard. You're always in a hurry, eyes straight ahead, missing all the scenery. You arrive everywhere exhausted, with the tank near empty. Remember the days when you used to run your race feeling like a million bucks? You were driven and energetic; you made things happen. You were on your game, and nobody could stop you. You ran your race well, didn't you, girl? But lately, you feel like you're dragging a one-hundred-pound sack of bowling balls with you.

What if this invitation offers a way to travel lighter and be who you were meant to be, deep down?

You want to say yes, but you're scared of what this might cost you. Because you are the girl who is laser focused and responsible. You are never needy. So many people count on you. If you say yes to the invitation, what will you have to say no to? Whom will you disappoint? If you let go of everything you're holding on to, what might break? This all feels new and out of control, an unsteady, shifting place for a woman who has managed to make everyone believe she's got it "all under control."

The invitation is beautiful — but it isn't safe.

The man at the window is Jesus. You knew that.

Look, he won't force you to leap into the life you were made for, but he will shamelessly entice you. Come, he says. I want to help.

This is your invitation, the help your weary soul longs for.

Will you say yes?

The Relentless Ways of Jesus

I said yes.

I would have been crazy not to — and you can't convince me otherwise, now that I know what I know.

But I didn't know any of that at first.

I'm the mom who habitually runs our Ford Explorer's gas tank ridiculously close to empty. My record low on the digital gas gauge is an impressive two miles to empty.

I have managed my life the same way, running on fumes.

When I finally ran out of gas in my life, I saw Jesus coming down the dirt road.

He had been relentless for years, let me tell you. He delivered his invitation during a dozen Bible studies, countless nights of bed-tossing uneasiness, and those sermons that suddenly had me sitting up straight in my pew, like I'd been caught in the act.

I should have RSVP'd way back when, but I kept pushing, kept trying to hold it all together.

My condition: control.

Jesus spent years trying to tame my rather robust inner control freak. That side of me emerges at the mileposts of life, and also in the everyday moments: when team members in a project don't fulfill their obligations, when parked cars take up two spaces in the Target lot, when an airline pilot's youthful appearance leaves me with the sudden urge to research his credentials. Just last week, my...