I don't know exactly what happened next. Perhaps I reasoned that the campus ministry hierarchy would see this as an issue. Maybe I actually asked them, and maybe they did see it as an issue. All I remember is leaving this lovely young woman with an impossible choice to make.
We met again later, and she confirmed her choice to choose love over a Bible study. She surely walked away thinking she had had a close call. I never saw her again.
Do you see where I'm going with this? I hope so. I can hardly imagine a more botched opportunity to do something wonderful and life-giving.
Just before the Lord reminded me of this conversation, I had been reading Isaiah 61, the passage Jesus read publicly to announce the beginning of His ministry. After remembring my conversation with this girl, I re-read the first four verses of Isaiah 61, and I wept.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
Can you see it yet? Particularly look at the end, from the middle of verse 3 to the end of verse 4 ("they" in the first line below refers back to those who mourn in Zion, i.e. the freed prisoners):
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
I don't know if this is coming across clearly at all, so I'll try to explain another way.
Below is a letter to my former friend. I'll call her "M." -- don't worry about whether that's her real initial or whether it stands for her first or last name.
Dear M.,
I prayed a retroactive prayer for you yesterday.
After we talked that final time, I'm guessing you felt a bit the way I'm feeling now as I remember our conversation. You came to me wanting to know Jesus better. Instead, I gave you religion. I am now asking you to forgive me.
I don't remember why you told me about your living situation. It was the late 1970s, so this was a much more unusual arrangement than it is now. Perhaps you were feeling the tug of the Holy Spirit about this? I can only speculate.
I couldn't give you more than religion, because I didn't have much more than religion myself. I knew Jesus, but our relationship was tiny. I kept it tiny in my ignorance. I didn't meet with Him daily in an attitude of praise and surrender. I treated prayer as a last-resort problem-solving tool, rather than as the lifeblood of our relationship. I read scripture more with my mind than with my heart. And I only really read it when I felt I was supposed to, for some study or other. I didn't bathe in it. I didn't let God break me with it. I didn't let God show me His heart through it.
Back to our conversation.
In my own defense, I was part of a structure that in many ways encouraged loyalty to the hierarchy as a central theme. I don't think they realized they were doing this. I think they thought they were helping fulfill the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations. In some ways they certainly were. But sometimes the structure got in the way. Sometimes it was the structure, not the Lord, that dictated how to respond to certain situations. I was once called on the carpet for not insisting that a young woman move to the next Bible study level. She didn't feel ready to move to the next level; I respected this, and was severely reprimanded. When I bucked like a wild horse at this reprimand, I was told I was "unteachable." We all made nice in the end, but now that I look back on it, I was onto something. My gut was trying to show me a principle I didn't understand yet, and that is this: It's the Holy Spirit's job to disciple a person. We are simply tools. Our responsibility is to stay so intimately locked in fellowship with Him that He can use us to produce fruit -- it's HIS fruit, not ours. As soon as it begins to become "our" fruit, "our" ministry, "our" system, He's not in it anymore.
So what should I have said to you that day? I'm not sure. I was under certain constraints. It would have been better if I'd said, "M., regarding what you just told me -- it's the Holy Spirit's job to nudge and change people as He sees fit. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing preventing you from being part of a Bible study.We all have issues that He's working on. It's possible, though, that this structured environment isn't the best place for us to meet. Maybe we could meet one-on-one for a while? I have so many wonderful things I'd like to share with you about getting to know Jesus!"
...Except I couldn't say that yet. It wasn't true yet. It's true now, but not then. I had to be broken down by the Lord and rebuilt to even begin to really understand these things. What I had learned was a system, not a deep dependence on Him. When Jesus finally got my full attention, by letting me become a prisoner and then freeing me, all that changed.
M., my retroactive prayer for you is this:
Father, meet M. where she is. Send someone into her life who knows and adores You, to do what I couldn't do that day. Lead her to a sweet, deep walk with Jesus. Let her learn to lay her life at Your feet. If this boyfriend is the right person for her, please hurry and draw him to Yourself. If not, let her know.
Please keep her away from empty religious structures. Let her find Your living heart and dwell there all her days. Don't let that conversation we had be an end, but a real, life-giving beginning.
I pray this in the name of The Beautiful, and to His glory. Thank You.
On the extremely remote chance you're reading this, M., I hope you've had a good life. I'm so sorry I let you down that day. The Lord called me to be one of His people, one of His oaks of righteousness -- the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. I let Him down that day, too.
Must keep moving forward, though. He has so much more work to do.
May His hand be upon you always,
J.