Write About Now

This past Tuesday at small group, Joe shared his usual prayer request: “That I would just hear God and be able to discern his will.” Every week he shares this request, and every week I struggle with whether or not to confront him on something that’s been bothering me—early in our gatherings Joe shared that he enjoyed the midweek worship gatherings at church and liked small group, but didn’t really like Sunday morning church and so he no longer attended.

Those who know me well (and even not so well) can tell you that I usually don’t have trouble telling people what I think, but I hardly know Joe (see earlier tirade on small groups) and wasn’t sure how my input would be received. Nevertheless, on Tuesday after Joe shared his prayer request again, I asked permission from him in front of the group to share a thought. I told him that every week I hear him make this request and pray this prayer, and yet my experience with God is that he often reveals his will to the extent that we are obeying what we already know. “Joe,” I said, “you need to be in church. Obey in that area, and see what God does.”

To his credit, Joe heard this, wasn’t defensive, and thanked me for my encouragement.

This morning I hurried in to the worship center, looking around me for someone smiley with a bulletin, and saw Joe standing against the wall looking like he was waiting for someone. I said hi and kept going. It wasn’t until the middle of the third song that it hit me: Joe came to church. I said hi to Joe. And I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that the significance of this did not even register with me enough to talk to him, much less invite him to sit with me or tell him how proud I was of his being there. I had to stop singing, bow my head, and apologize to God. I looked up from the prayer hoping Joe was still against the wall so that I could try to make it right, but he had either (hopefully) taken his seat by then or had left.

Yep—I’m a jerk.