Blessed are the needy of spirit, for the healing presence of God
is within their grasp.
ALICE was there in our midst,
another anonymous figure at a community kitchen event. I hadn’t even noticed
her. Then I was called into a room with her and two other people to minister
with and pray for her. Alice was experiencing something very familiar to many
of us. She was despairingly fearful, bereft of hope, utterly broken of spirit,
shaken by grief. Her mother had died recently, her rock, a son was being
imprisoned, and her family was imploding around her. She bore these burdens
alone it seemed, and though she faced suicidal ideations daily she sat
awkwardly poised and unable to act, thankfully because of those very burdens of
family she carried.
But, here is the point: she was remarkably
receptive and spiritually amenable.
Nobody thanks God for the pain that
incises the chest of the soul, leaving the heart bare, but ministers of the
Word thank the Holy Spirit for His unction that manifests such eternality of
opportunity. Many people are never this vulnerable, ever.
Alice was open. Situations like
this create a sense of the fear of the Lord.
Openness is vulnerability and vulnerable people are susceptible to
exploitation, which is a failure no minister worth their calling wants to make.
In that moment, we utter a prayer of protection for them as we breathe a prayer
for guidance for ourselves. Courage and awareness is what we need. God supplies
at our surrender to be present to serve.
As she shared, she wept. The
moment, as we might imagine, was palpable. God is at work in moments where the
emotions overflow between strangers. As she wept, I allowed my emotions to
match hers. We listened and waited on her. It was obvious her surrender was
perfectly anointed because she had nothing left of her own ego to fight. We
prayed and counselled her, and when she had regained her poise we tended to her
practical needs.
Then she left. For weeks following,
as the Lord brought her to mind, I’d pray for Alice.
God showed me something through our
interaction with Alice. It coalesces with the quote:
“The gospel is not simply about
meeting people’s needs. The gospel is a critique of our needs, an attempt to
give us needs worth having.”
—
William Willimon
The needs worth having are those desires
that are so purified of vision that they see just one source for fulfilment:
Jesus. I believe Alice, as we encountered her, exemplified something of a
craving that sought Jesus knowing only
Jesus could satisfy. Her neediness was a pure kind, unlike the kind of human
neediness that craves impure things or pure things through impure means or through
poor self-control.
Where there is a genuine spiritual
neediness, human neediness becomes redundant.
*Alice is not her real name.
*Some details in Alice’s story have been altered to protect her
privacy, but there is no exaggeration.
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