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Transcript

Messy Advice... | Spiritual Deodorant Required · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

• 0:00
  This one's for anyone who's ever replayed a conversation in their head
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  12 times trying to figure out if that awkward hug was
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  love or just weird. Let's be honest, caring
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  isn't always clear. Sometimes it's second guessing what
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  you said, wondering if you should have stayed longer or backed off
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  sooner. Loving people well sounds good on paper, but in real
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  life, it's more like stumbling forward in the dark, hoping grace covers the
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  gaps. Gaps. And half the time, you're not sure if you're planting seeds of
• 0:29
  love or just stepping on rakes. You try to be present.
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  You try to listen. You offer help, and it's met with silence
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  or awkwardness or maybe even offense. You think,
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  was that too much, not enough, did I make it worse,
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  or just mildly confusing with good intentions? This is
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  messy advice for people who care, for anyone who's still trying to love
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  well without a clear map, and who's willing to keep showing up
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  anyway. This is Johan on the edge of helpful,
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  fumbling forward with love, second guessing, and enough sweat to
• 1:03
  ruin your spiritual deodorant. Today's question
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  may as well have been the theme of this whole series. Let's get right
• 1:11
  into it. I'm trying to love people well,
• 1:15
  but I often feel unsure if I'm doing it right. How do I know if
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  I'm actually helping or just trying hard and hoping?
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  Which to be fair also describes most of our cooking, parenting,
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  and prayer lives. If you've ever felt more like a well meaning
• 1:30
  mess than a spiritual rock star, you're not alone.
• 1:34
  According to a 2022 Faith in Canada survey,
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  sixty eight percent of practicing Christians say they wanna live out their faith
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  in practical ways, but more than half feel unsure
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  how to do that in a world where care can be complicated.
• 1:50
  We're trying to bring casseroles to heart problems, and sometimes it
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  works, Sometimes, not so much.
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  We wanna love people well, but the how is often
• 2:01
  fuzzier than we'd like to admit. So what do we do with all the
• 2:05
  doubt, the awkwardness, the trying and not always getting it
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  right? Sometimes loving people well feels less like a
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  spiritual gift and more like a series of small social
• 2:16
  experiments. Some of them go great. Some of
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  them end up in follow-up texts, social anxiety,
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  and a weird feeling you can't quite shake.
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  Picture this. You drop off a meal for someone going through
• 2:30
  a tough time. You rehearse what to say on the drive there.
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  You hand it over with a warm smile and, let me know if you
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  need anything, and then spend the rest of the night overthinking
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  every part of that interaction. Was it too much, not
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  enough? Did it land as love or land as awkward? You weren't
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  trying to impress anyone. You were just hoping they'd feel the love that didn't
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  quite fit in the Tupperware. Let's take a look at some scripture.
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  Let's get biblical biblical.
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  There in Luke seven, here's a woman that joined a
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  party that she wasn't invited to, described as a woman
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  of the city who is a sinner, not someone any respected leader
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  would dare be associated with. Everyone else is reclining at the
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  table, calm, composed, respectable, but not her.
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  Now the way I picture it, she's ugly crying, not a
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  dignified tear sliding down her cheek, but that full
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  body kind of sobbing that takes over your face. Her
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  hair's down, which is already a cultural risk, and she's using
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  it along with her tears to wipe Jesus's feet.
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  This is messy, tangibly, emotionally,
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  socially. It's not inspiring in that sanitized way we usually like
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  our faith stories. It's raw. It's disruptive,
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  visually uncomfortable. And Jesus, he doesn't
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  rush her. He doesn't clean her up. He doesn't stop
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  her or make it more palatable. He lets her come undone
• 4:00
  at his feet, and he tells everyone else in the room,
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  she understands what this moment is really about.
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  He honors the emotion, the risk, that
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  cost. It wasn't tidy, but it was true.
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  She didn't check if her love made sense. She just poured
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  it all out, and Jesus didn't flinch. In
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  fact, he called it beautiful. You see, you don't need to
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  get it all right to be walking in love. If you're still
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  asking questions, still paying attention, still trying to care without
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  turning into a machine, you're doing better than you think.
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  Love is clumsy most of the time, but it's still holy.
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  You don't need to be amazing at this. You just need to stay open to
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  the mess. So if you made it through the series still
• 4:49
  wrestling, still laughing, still loving, you're exactly who this was
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  for. You're not behind. You're becoming.
• 4:57
  If you got a story to share, if you wanna be part of a group
• 5:00
  of like minded individuals trying to care in the messy,
• 5:04
  join our Care Impact podcast group on Facebook or head over to
• 5:07
  our website and keep tabs on what we're up to at
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  careimpact.ca. Until next time, keep loving,
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  keep laughing, and if you made a mess out of loving people well,
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  congrats, that means you're actually loving people
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  and always remember to stay
• 5:29
  curious.