“I threw a few reels in the water today!” she said after a morning applying for jobs.
And we laugh at her, that’s not how you are supposed to do it! Throw a LINE in the water; you have to hold on to the reel so you can know if you are getting a bite!
She giggles, shrugs, “I don’t know fishing, so, whatever!”
A few days later, the perfect job falls into her lap, unrelated to any of her ‘fishing’ attempts.
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“Throwing a reel in the water” reminds me of wild seed-sowing of God in Scripture. It’s so different from my normal strategy: planting seeds and demanding growth, or planting seeds and check, check, checking on how they are doing. It looks more like planting seeds and (just imagine!) walking away.
It sounds a little bit like right-sized showing up; like doing one’s part, and then commending outcomes to God.
I read “Life Together” with a book club recently, and I thought of this imagery again. Bonhoeffer teaches that Christian love does not micromanage, rather, “it will encounter the other with the clear word of God and be prepared to leave the other alone with this word for a long time.”
All this is fine in the sunshine, but God, how do I leave my loved ones alone when I know they are struggling? When body language shouts "I'm not ok. I'm really not ok.” When approaching with touch or words triggers bristling; as if porcupine quills were extended in my direction?
“I’m available,” mom peeps…he scootches another inch away
(no mere inch- a vast canyon, my voice does not carry in those moments)
How to turn away, even for a moment, from the seeds planted? How to commend a struggling loved one to God and go about my business? How to stop scanning for fruit or growth or a return to joy?
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Has seed been sown, their whole life long?
Has God promised to show up?
Can He care for them without your hands?
Can He take the time He needs to do His work?
Does He love them more than you do?
Then let it be. Leave them alone with the struggles, and with the Word, and with God who is surely present.
(But maybe also, make something good for dinner and invite them to the table, nonchalantly, of course.)
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The book Life Together resonates surprisingly well to family life, especially with teenagers. The quote above in its full context:
Because Christ has long since acted decisively for other Christians, before I could begin to act, I must allow them the freedom to be Christ’s.
Emotional(human) love constructs its own image of other persons, about what they are and what they should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person as seen from the perspective of Jesus Christ. It is the image Jesus Christ has formed and wants to form in all people. Therefore, spiritual love will prove successful insofar as it commends the other to Christ in all that it says and does. It will not seek to agitate another by exerting all too personal, direct influence or by crudely interfering in one’s life. It will not take pleasure in pious, emotional fervor and excitement. Rather, it will encounter the other with the clear word of God and be prepared to leave the other alone with this word for a long time. It will be willing to release others again so that Christ may deal with them. It will respect the boundary of the other, which is placed between us by Christ, and it will find full community with the other in the Christ who alone binds us together. This spiritual love will thus speak to Christ about the other Christian more than to the other Christian about Christ.
Emotional (human) love breeds artificial hothouse flowers; spiritual love creates the fruits that grow healthily under God’s open sky, according to God’s good pleasure in the rain and storm and sunshine.
Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Chapter 1
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