The Paradox Paper #30

🎶 Aaaaaaaaapril, come she will 🎶

Looking back I’m not totally sure how we actually accomplished all the things April had on the calendar. First we moved my parents in. Then Easter Weekend, a three day affair at the least. Then two birthdays. Two student ministry sermons for Trevor. A bout of strep for two of our kids. A stomach bug for Grandma. A three-day out of town business trip for Trevor. A speaking engagement for me. A three-day, 30th-birthday-and-anniversary vacation. A come-to-Jesus meeting, and now prep for Trevor’s shoulder surgery next week. What a time!

In between all the hubbub has been such tenderness. My 89 year old father reading with his grandsons. The middle boy watching the oldest walk into school and sighing, “I’m really gonna miss that guy.” Gathering around one table for a meal without the looming presence of a too-soon goodbye. We are, as always, “carried along, all the way home.”

Welcome to The Paradox Paper, a monthly newsletter that honors the everyday paradox of a life with Jesus. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:

In this edition:

• Two books I will reach for again and again

• A short story about an unexpected confession

• A prayer from Psalm 103

Beth Moore’s All My Knotted Up Life
I’ve read this twice this month. Trevor overheard me mentioning it to a friend shortly after I’d started it and loudly interrupted “OH NO ARE YOU READING BETH’S MEMOIR?!? I want to read it! No spoilers!” We had a road trip a few weeks later, so we started back at the beginning, and he was hooked. Allow me to share a few remarks from my man who’s generally apathetic toward books:

“Well that took a turn for the…intense.”

“Babe, we gotta get you teaching aerobics.”

“So when are we gonna burn the SBC to the ground?”

“I like this Keith guy.”

“I’m about to cry.”

“I’m crying. Are you crying???”

This story and it’s author are so dear. And FUNNY. And true. Beth has the rare gift of being able to call evil by it’s name without letting it take up all the oxygen in the room. And when she writes about her Jesus she makes Him sound as good as He is. Good enough to pull over on the side of the highway to shed a tear and shout a praise. I know there’s page readers and audio readers, and you do you, but Sister Beth’s sheer expression (not to mention the various Arkansas accents) makes this audio experience absolutely enthralling. We will be reaching for this for years to come.

On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living by Alan Noble
This book came unexpectedly (but not accidentally) across my path as I was preparing to speak to a group of women at our church on the topic of suffering. It’s about how to be well in the midst of suffering, especially mental suffering. It’s short (120 pages for the page readers, under two hours for the audio readers) and refreshingly practical. I heard someone describe it as “a 100 page Psalm for our exhausted modern age,” and I think that’s a perfect description.

A couple of weeks ago I gathered together a few of the high school girls I mentor for a movie and manicure night. Except we never watched the movie and no one touched a bottle of nail polish. They just talked. And talked. And kept talking. And I let them. This was fine with me! I’d seen the movie before and a naked nail never killed anybody. Except the conversation didn’t go anywhere helpful.

Now I’m not somebody that thinks every word has to be dripping in church talk to be worth something. A heap of holy bonding can happen over some nonsense stories seasoned with colorful vocabulary. But this wasn’t that. This was just the same grievance against the same people talked over five or six different ways with everybody getting madder and madder at each retelling. I felt like a deer in the headlights trapped in a coop full of headless chickens. As our time together came to a close one of the girls made a confession to the whole group as she stood up to leave. I say “confession” because what came out of her mouth was as clear as a neon billboard on a new moon night: I’M NOT DOING SO WELL.

But she didn’t say it like she meant to confess. What made the whole thing such a shock wasn’t the content of her words, but how casually she spoke them. The delivery was more like if she’d said, “I used to bite my nails. I bit ‘em every time I watched TV. I guess everybody has to bite their nails for a while before they learn not to.” And then she bid us all goodnight and left, breezy as you please.

I left the evening no little perturbed. I wasn’t a bit mad at those girls—the one who inadvertently confessed nor the rest who got stuck on the hamster wheel of useless conversation. Those things happen to even the wisest grownups I know. I was mad at myself. I should’ve interrupted them to start the movie. I should’ve grabbed the bottle of Tip Your Barista and begun applying it to somebody’s under dressed big toe.

Trevor was on the couch when I got home and I told him all about the evening, the unexpected confession, and how disgruntled I felt with my own self. “I’m gonna have to talk to her aren’t I?” I said, looking down at my unpainted thumbnails.

“Yep,” Trevor said.

“No way I could reasonably just let that slide, right?”

“Nope.”

If it sounds like I’d find an appointment to have my fingernails removed more relaxing than an appointment to talk to a teenager (or anyone else) about their harmful behavior, you’ve got the picture.

The next morning I jolted awake to the sound of my alarm, no less vexed. I fixed my coffee and got out my journal. As will often happen when I don’t know how to identify my emotions or what to do about them, the Spirit began to unwind my true motivations as I wrote. Here’s a peek:

Maybe I only want leadership when it means influence and praise and validation, and not when it means anger, confrontation, rejection, and disagreement. What a cheat.

I cheat those I have influence over and I cheat myself. Am I unwilling to pull a brother or sister back from the brink because they might fuss at the way I grabbed their shirt? Do I trust You so little with my ministry that I would lock up any words of wisdom and guidance and truth? What do I think? That folks will eventually just hold up a sign that says, “OKAY I’M READY TO HEAR THE HARD STUFF NOW” ?

You have given me a ministry with these young women, in this church, within the walls of my home, and I don’t want to miss the good work You will do—the work you have already prepared—by hiding what the Spirit brings to light. Let me remember this whenever I am faced with a choice between wisdom and folly, correction and permission, “working to tell the good news,” or telling myself someone else will do it. Let me never speak shame and condemnation over anyone, but let me never so devalue them that I say nothing.

All of this was the working out of an idea my brain has now shortened to, “involuntary leadership.” Sometimes leadership is a thing you go after—class president, school board, department head, etc. Other times leadership comes with the territory whether you chased it down or not. Whether we want it or not, whether we’re doing a good job or not, somebody somewhere is taking their cues from us.

Throughout my growing up years in church and into my adult ministry life, I’ve often heard service discussed alongside leadership. This is based on the principle Jesus laid out when He said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Matthew 9:35) The idea is that under the rule of King Jesus, anyone who hopes for influence or authority must be willing to serve in the lowliest of ways. This always made sense to me. Anyone who leads must also serve. It weeds out the arrogant and power hungry. Simple.

But recently I’ve begun to wonder if the principle works the other way too. Maybe it’s not only “whoever leads must serve,” but also “whoever serves will lead.”

I’ve never felt like a leader. I don’t want to be in charge. Having to tell other people what to do stresses me out. We’ve established that I especially don’t like to tell other people how they’ve messed up. Service—quietly helping where I can and then getting out of the way when it’s time to lay down the law or make the decisions—feels comfortable to me. Low risk. High reward.

That morning at my kitchen table I wondered for the first time if perhaps leadership and service were not as easily detached as I’d hoped. I don’t get to “just serve” my children. My position as mother and caretaker demands that I also lead them. I don’t get to just “be there” for my high school girls. Being there puts me in a position of influence by default.

I’ve always believed that showing up for the leadership of ministry while neglecting the service is a real schmuck move. Now I’m wondering if showing up for the service and rejecting the leadership that comes with it is just as schmucky. For years I’ve been loudly telling myself and anyone else within earshot, “I’m not a leader and don’t want to be,” and maybe that’s not as humble as I’d hoped. Maybe it’s been one giant excuse to avoid the responsibility of the leadership I already have.

King Jesus demands His leaders serve. Maybe He also demands His servants lead.

Hold the paradox. Don’t panic. See you next month!

-Steph

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