When Availability Doesn't Equal Results
Calling Isn’t Mine To Choose.
Circumstances Are Not Mine To Control.
Crisis Doesn't Check the Clock.
At 2:23 in the morning, my phone rang.
On the other end was a friend. A mother struggling with more than one burden at the same time. Her daughter was there with her, questioning her faith, her beliefs, and perhaps even the direction of her life.
Her mother was concerned. Emotional. Looking for something she couldn't quite put into words.
She wanted me to talk to her daughter. To share my story. Maybe offer some perspective that could reach her in a way a mother's words weren't reaching her that night.
I could hear the weight of the moment.
And somewhere in that conversation, I was reminded of something that has taken me a considerable portion of my life to understand.
I am not in the results business.
That doesn't mean I don't care about the results.
It means I've finally begun to understand which responsibilities are mine — and which never belonged to me in the first place.
I. The Moments Come Unexpectedly
Life doesn't schedule its most meaningful encounters around our convenience.
Sometimes they happen in a grocery store, on a jobsite, or in a passing conversation with someone whose circumstances we know absolutely nothing about.
And sometimes they come through a ringing telephone while the rest of the world is asleep.
I've learned that opportunities to make a difference don't always announce themselves as opportunities.
Sometimes they arrive disguised as interruptions.
Someone needs to talk. Someone is struggling. Someone has reached a place where the answers they've relied on no longer seem sufficient.
And for reasons we may never fully understand, they've reached out to us.
Years ago, I might have approached a situation like that with the belief that I needed to have the answers.
I needed to say something profound. Something powerful enough to change the direction of the conversation, or perhaps even someone's life.
After all, I have a testimony.
I've lived through addiction, destructive decisions, spiritual confusion, and years of wrestling with a man in the mirror I wasn't particularly proud to recognize.
I've experienced restoration that I once struggled to imagine was possible.
Surely all of that experience ought to equip me to fix something.
Right?
Not necessarily.
Experience gives us something to offer. It doesn't give us ownership of another person's transformation.
That's a distinction worth sitting with.
When I began speaking with that young woman, I didn't want to convince her that she was wrong.
I wanted to understand how she'd arrived at the place she was standing.
And I wanted her to know that questioning what she'd been taught didn't make her unworthy of love, dignity, or a place at the table.
I remember being young and questioning things myself.
I remember challenging the beliefs I'd inherited.
And I remember how little I appreciated being told what I was supposed to think.
So I shared some of my story.
Not to win an argument.
But because perhaps something I'd lived through might give her something worth considering as she navigated her own journey.
Sometimes the opportunity isn't to provide an answer. It's to create enough room for someone to begin asking their own questions.
II. The Call Is Not Negotiable
Let me clarify something.
I'm not suggesting that every interruption is a divine assignment, or that every person who needs something from us is entitled to unlimited access to our lives.
I've spent enough years learning about boundaries, recovery, and personal responsibility to know better.
But I do believe we're called to something greater than simply managing our own comfort.
We're called to love.
To serve.
To recognize the humanity in someone whose experiences and beliefs may look nothing like our own.
And when we recognize an opportunity to exercise that calling, we have a decision to make.
Will I show up?
Will I listen?
Will I offer what I have without demanding something in return?
The calling to love and serve is not negotiable. The manner in which we respond still requires wisdom and discernment.
That distinction matters.
Because there's a difference between being available and being consumed.
Between compassion and obligation.
Between serving someone and assuming responsibility for the direction of their life.
That night, the conversation wasn't particularly orderly.
There were interruptions. Emotions ran high. More than one person needed to be heard, and I could sense that the conversation was carrying far more history than any of us could unpack in a single phone call.
At moments, I could feel the opportunity to connect slipping away.
And I wanted to bring it back.
But even that impulse required examination.
Was I trying to serve the moment, or was I beginning to feel responsible for controlling it?
There's a fine line between those two things.
And I know from personal experience how easily we can cross it while believing our intentions are entirely good.
I can offer guidance without directing someone's decisions.
I can share my faith without demanding theirs.
I can be present in someone's pain without taking possession of it.
And I can establish boundaries without withdrawing my love.
Being available is an act of service. Becoming indispensable is not the objective.
I wasn't called to become that family's answer.
I was simply given an opportunity to show up.
And that's what I did.
III. The Results Are Not Up to Me
There's a passage in Scripture that has become increasingly meaningful to me.
1 Corinthians 3:6.
Paul describes planting, Apollos watering, and God being the one who brings the growth.
Simple words.
An extraordinary lesson.
Because planting is something we can do.
We can prepare the ground. Place the seed. Water what has been planted. Tend to what we've been entrusted with.
But we cannot manufacture life.
We cannot force roots to take hold.
And we cannot command the harvest simply because we've invested ourselves in the process.
I think we sometimes forget that when it comes to people.
We want to see someone recover.
We want to see a marriage restored.
We want our children to make decisions that protect them from the pain we've experienced.
We want someone we love to discover the faith that has carried us through our darkest moments.
And those desires aren't inherently wrong.
But when our peace becomes dependent upon the choices someone else makes, we've taken on a burden we were never designed to carry.
I've learned that lesson the hard way.
Through addiction. Through recovery. Through relationships. Through the consequences of trying to manage circumstances and people I had no legitimate power to control.
And sometimes through the uncomfortable discovery that even my desire to help can become entangled with my desire to feel necessary.
That's not an easy thing to admit.
But the fire doesn't refine what we're unwilling to acknowledge.
The conversation that morning didn't end with a dramatic revelation.
There was no sudden declaration of faith. No resolution to the family's struggles. No assurance that anything I'd said would produce a particular outcome.
There were tears.
There was gratitude.
There was a prayer.
And there was an open door should another conversation ever be needed.
That was it.
And I've come to realize something.
That was enough.
Not because I accomplished everything I might have hoped to accomplish.
But because accomplishing those things was never my assignment.
My responsibility was to respond faithfully to the opportunity in front of me.
To speak honestly.
To listen with compassion.
To love without conditions.
And then to release the outcome.
That's not indifference.
That's surrender.
And surrender, I've discovered, requires a kind of strength that control never could.
Because surrender asks me to trust that something meaningful can continue long after my involvement has ended.
It asks me to accept that the value of my willingness isn't measured exclusively by the results I get to witness.
It asks me to stop confusing my participation in someone's story with authorship of their story.
And ultimately, it asks me to remember who I am—and who I am not.
I'm a man who has been through the fire.
A man still learning.
Still growing.
Still discovering what it means to walk faithfully rather than perfectly.
I have a testimony to share, hands willing to help, and a heart that doesn't want to look away when someone is hurting.
But I am not anyone's savior.
And I don't need to be.
What Remains Mine
The sun eventually came up that morning.
I hadn't slept much. The responsibilities of another day were already waiting, and nothing about the world had fundamentally changed.
But the experience left me with a reminder I needed just as much as anyone else.
Plant faithfully.
Love without conditions.
Leave room for God to do what only God can do.
And remember that showing up doesn't mean being available without boundaries.
Sometimes the greatest act of faith isn't what we accomplish.
It's what we're willing to release after we've done our part.
I cannot guarantee that what I plant today will ever become something I get to see tomorrow.
I cannot determine how another person will receive what I've offered.
And I cannot claim ownership of the growth that may come afterward.
The call may be mine to answer.
The seed may be mine to plant.
But the harvest isn't mine.
And I'm finally learning to be at peace with that.
