Are you a fixer?
Do you look for ways to help others?
Do you ever feel compelled to jump into someone else’s struggle to help them get through it quicker or easier?
I know that I tend this way. A lot of us do. It’s probably one of the reasons I’m a pastor. I feel called to serve other people, especially those who find themselves struggling in some way.
And yet, I’ve learned throughout my years of serving as a pastor, mentor, and friend that not every situation is in need of quick fixing, or every struggle in need of an accelerated end.
I know this seems contrary to our natural impulse to deal with pain and struggle with swift resolve, but I have found, time and again, that what we want is not always what God wants. Just because we want to fast-forward through an uncomfortable season of life doesn’t mean that’s what God wants for us. And when you’re in a “helping” profession like I am, or just have the DNA of a helper within you, times like this can cause you to feel helpless and otherwise useless in the lives of those you feel called to serve.
But that’s not true.
Just because we cannot get someone out of a jam, or put back together something that has become undone, doesn’t mean that we are without a role in the lives of those around us who struggle and strive for understanding, peace, healing, and resolve.
In recent years this verse from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth has given me perspective to my desire to be a helper or “fixer.” Paul, in addressing the issue of our human limitation, and need to recognize that there are some things that only God can do, exhorts:
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through who you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s field, God’s building. (3:5-9)
God can use us in any situation. If we don’t prescribe the role, or predetermine the path or the outcomes, there’s no telling how God might choose to use us.
But we will always only be a role player – no more and no less.
And the same is true for the person we seek to help. They also must play a role in living into and through their current situation and circumstances. While we have the option to join them on their journey, they don’t have the luxury of opting in or out. They will have to persevere. The question is whether or not they will be open to God and God’s leading in their life. Or will they choose to put their head in the sand, close their eyes and clench their fists, and fight God every step of the way.
God can ultimately do whatever God wants.
God does not need us, nor is God dependent upon us to make something happen.
And yet, God seems to create space for us to participate in our own, and at times, in others spiritual growth and formation.
The image that Paul paints in the passage above captures it perfectly for me. The role players do what they are called to do – their work for the day, for the situation at hand – and then they leave to God what only God can do.
So, for this “fixer,” I am reminded today to play the role that God has called me to play – and then to leave room for God to work and heal and grow and change the person and situation in ways that only God can.
God is God and I am not.
God is God and you are not.
God is God and we are not.
So might we listen for the leading of God’s Spirit, in every situation, so that we might discern what our work is… and what it is not.
