Crossing the Event Horizon
“No individual is an absolute terminal of the love of Jesus. He reaches through us toward others. Indeed he is not satisfied with us until he has made us eager to reach out and help others as he himself is to reach them.”
Frank Laubach, You Are My Friends
It’s been almost a year since posting the article Following a Three-Mile an Hour God. Since then, the Lord had been gently reminding me of my promise to be more open, accessible, and intentional about engaging others. Several weeks ago I read the quote from the book You Are my Friends by Frank Laubach.
They were yet another reminder.
For about a year, I’ve been feeling as though my spiritual growth had come to a standstill. It was like there was a barrier that I needed to overcome—some issue of obedience that I needed to repent of. Thankfully, the Lord is relentless to release us from the things that restrict the flow of His life. Through His nudges, He’s been calling me to release my fear of “being known” so that He could express Himself to others through my relationships. Not only did my disobedience hamper His activity, it had created a barrier to my own spiritual growth.
There were no longer any detours around this issue; I had to address it head on. The only way forward was to repent and follow my King. Of course, my excuses for my “delayed” obedience were well-reasoned and complex. But I’m told that the only way to repent from your sins is to first name them.
Deeper Confessions
First, I had led myself to falsely believe that the Lord would bless my passivity. Rather than engage others proactively, I would pray to the Lord and ask Him to setup divine appointments obvious enough for me to stumble into. Once there, I promised to follow-through with whatever conversation someone else would start. While this took the onus of engagement safely off of me, I noticed these opportunities rarely presented themselves.
The Lord apparently wasn’t interested in my passive engagement; He wanted me to engage others in active outreach.
Second, I really didn’t know how to engage others in a practical way. Up to that point, my only frame of reference for engaging others spiritually had been in a methodological “witnessing” technique that was the source of a lot of guilt growing up.
“Hey, Bob. Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? I really believe that God has a plan for your life. It might not seem like it now, but He can do great things in your life if you trust Him. Hey, just say this prayer with me and let Jesus into your heart.”
This kind of interaction scared me to death. As a child it scared me because I was shy and never talked to anyone about anything (let alone about Jesus). As a young adult it scared me because this conversation seemed like the only legitimate conversation you could have with a non-believer. As an adult, it scares me because I’m not a salesman and don’t feel like Jesus is something that should be peddled like a low mileage program car. It was also lame because it reduces the Eternal Purpose to a one-dimensional transaction intended only to get them “saved”.
There were certainly better words. But just because Jesus shouldn’t be treated as a sales commission doesn’t give us a pass never to mention Him. At some point, the proverbial rubber must hit the proverbial road. There times when we must directly engage others with the words of Christ and the life and message they carry. Ostensibly, I knew that I couldn’t be a believer and never allow Jesus Christ to reach out to others through me. Frank Laubach new that. Jesus knows it. It’s an irrevocable fact. But I never had a frame of reference of how this happens naturally.
Third, I had to overcome spiritual paranoia. The last two decades has been a journey that has caused me to question just about everything I once believed about Christianity. While my thoughts on some matters have merely shifted, I’ve also come to believe that several ideas I once held were just plain wrong. While I feel like I’m much closer to understanding the truth today, this shift hasn’t left me unscathed. Parts of me still wonder if there aren’t greater and more fundamental truths that I should search out before putting into practice what I presently know.
But not knowing everything isn’t a good reason not to engage others with the truth that we do know. In a world where we need to have complete understanding in order to be viewed as an authority, it’s OK to not have it all figured out. I’ve felt incredible peace by telling people that I didn’t have all the answers. Christ is a mystery (and no one wants to talk to a know-it-all anyway). From my foxhole, presenting ourselves as open to all (save the foundational truths of Christ) gives us more credibility.
A Picture of Christ’s Influence
In astrophysics, the event horizon is the distance beyond which a celestial body’s effects aren’t experienced by an observer. For example, let’s say you were traveling in a spacecraft near a black hole. As long as you stay far enough away, you might feel the effect of its gravitation, but you won’t have to worry about being sucked in. However, there’s a distance where gravitational forces become so strong that it will be impossible for you to escape. In time, the attraction will draw you closer and closer until you are inevitably crushed by the mass of singularity.
The distance of inescapable influence is the black hole’s event horizon.
Likewise, Christ seeks influence through His followers. He wants us to be close enough to others so that He can draw them closer to Himself. To do that, they need to be within His event horizon.
But rather than the spacecraft drawing near the black hole, the black hole seeks proximity to the spacecraft.
My fears and misunderstandings have kept others outside of Christ’s sphere of influence. It’s not that He wasn’t reaching out and calling. I was the one that was suppressing Him. Today, He calls me to draw closer to others so that He might draw them into His loving, inescapable embrace.
Suppressing His influence was what I need to repent of.
Answers in the Wilderness
Two weekends ago, I was invited to go on a camping trip with a group of guys from Nashville. Most of the people in the group I had never met before. I knew the one who had organized the trip, though it had been several years since we last talked. But through a series of events, I ended up re-connecting with him in enough time to make the trip.
I had always admired him for His nearness to the Lord while being so normal. What I mean by normal was that, while he was confident about the Lord’s activity in His life, he wasn’t smug or weird about it. He simply lived in awareness and dependence on the Christ’s leading in incredibly practical ways.
The purpose of the trip (aside from “reconnecting with nature”) was to spend time together going deeper into Christ to learn what it meant to be a son of God. Over the weekend, I learned a lot about these men. Most were incredibly mature. Many, like myself, were seeking the Lord’s direction amid others on the same journey.
One morning before everyone else got up, I sat down next to my friend next to what was left of last night’s campfire. I confessed to him that I was in need of some practical handles of how to engage others in a way that honored both Christ and the other person. I wanted to know how to allow Jesus to engage others through us without it being scripted and mechanical.
One piece of advice he gave me was simply to ask people who I knew if there was anything I could pray for them about. This wasn’t necessarily to lead them into a spiritual discussion. They need to be asked because you really want to bring the Lord into their situation and circumstances. Questions like that need to be sincere, not leading. If it leads directly to a more serious discussion, all the better. But even if it doesn’t, that person now knows that you’re a person who takes the Lord seriously. They know that you can be trusted to discuss topics of a spiritual nature. This can lead to deeper conversations.
Authentic concern? Sure, I could do that!
Another thing he mentioned is to seek a person of peace to have those discussions with. This is actually a biblical concept found in Luke 10 where Jesus sends out the 72 disciples to spread the gospel of the Kingdom.
Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you.
Luke 10:5-6 (ESV)
The idea is that you can be more direct with those who appear to be able to listen and discuss weightier matters without flying off the handle. To this advice He added the practice of “listening” for the Lord in the conversation and waiting for the right moment to inject His thoughts into the discussion.
Talking to a tranquil person about the Kingdom? Sure, I could do that!
Later that day, I decided to go for a long hike alone to spend some time with the Lord. Walking with Him gave me a chance to clear my mind. Being by myself allowed the Spirit to do His work in bringing my attention to deeper hindrances. While hiking, I recognized a lingering concern than rattled around in my head. Spiritual paranoia had led me to believe that I might be introducing problems with the spiritual growth of others. I recognized it as the Enemy’s deception. But to be completely free, I needed to be honest with my fears.
“Jesus, I love you. You have an incredible message that the world needs to hear. But I’m not sure I’m in the right place. I don’t trust my spiritual faculties. I just don’t want to screw this up…”
At that moment, the Lord spoke.
“Michael, listen to me. You cannot screw this up as long as you abide in Me.”
Abide in Me. It’s just as critical today as it was when He first told His disciples 2,000 years ago.
To abide in Christ is remain acutely aware of our spiritual union with the great I AM. It’s to think with His thoughts and to engage the world with His words and unsurpassed love. To abide is to recognize Him as our environment and shelter in whom we have nothing to fear.
It’s the difference between “screwing things up” and effortlessly connecting others to the King who takes joy in drawing others to Himself through willing sons and daughters.