Make Her Willing

He laughed at me, incredulous and kind. "Use your imagination."

"But where do you tell them to go if you don't have a bed for them?"

The answer came again, with a defensive edge this time: "You're gonna have to use your imagination.  Where would YOU go?  Maybe sleep in your car."

Thank him.  Hang up.  Cry.  I should help her, right?  But how?  I've been through all the options, and I just can't figure out how.

Pray, whispers the Father.  Ok.  I start and a thought pops.  I call the place she said she was getting kicked out of.  They shouldn't, but they do…they talk to me.  Perhaps I sound kind and sweet; too kind and sweet, they think, to be scammed. 

Ah, I’m not actually surprised…  I hang up, the angst of confusion gone.  I did need to know the truth, but it’s a more unhappy truth than her lie was, and my avenues to help her have not only shrunk, they’ve entirely disappeared.  Because now it’s apparent, she didn’t want help.

The angst over what to do tonight is gone, but the ache is even deeper.  A human soul, with layer upon layer of delusion and deception, lie and manipulation, wounds and accusations…only real conversion of that soul can peel back the layers deeply enough to find the image of God, to awaken the core girl who was created to know Him and respond to Him.  I can’t force a heart to be willing for God to start His peeling and digging and healing and redeeming.  Oh – sometimes I wish I could!  I tried, standing there talking to her.  I tried.  Only the Holy Spirit can do something so deep and impossible.

What makes my heart sink is this knowledge that many people, perhaps this girl, won't ever be willing. Revelation 9 came across my dinner table tonight:  "A third of mankind was killed...The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons...Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts."

I have to lay her down to Him and give up the idea of being the one to make sure she becomes new, and when I do I realize that’s what He intended.  Pray, He whispers, so that when we turn to Him, we find out His thoughts rather than our own ideas.  I have to know what He wants me to do – this is obedience, right?  Obedience isn’t doing what we think He’d like.  It’s doing what He says.  And tonight He said, be at peace.  So I shall.  What I was supposed to do, I did: a cup of water in Jesus' name.  The rest is up to Him.

Jesus, make her willing to come to You.  Make her willing…