Women & Children First… Jazmin Eventually

Yesterday, I asked God to help me stop caring.

Not care less.

Not care more appropriately.

Not develop healthier boundaries around my caring.

Nope.

I wanted the whole department shut down, IMMEDIATELY.

Close Caring Incorporated. Liquidate the assets. Everybody grab your personal belongings. We had a good run.

I was tired.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from caring deeply about people, outcomes, responsibilities, relationships, expectations, callings, feelings, futures and things I cannot actually control. And somewhere between trying to love people well and trying to keep everything from falling apart, I realized I had crossed a line.

I wasn’t just caring anymore.

I was carrying.

And apparently there is a difference.

Genesis 13:5-9 tells us that Abram and Lot had both accumulated so much that the land could no longer support them together. Their possessions had increased. Their people had increased. Their lives had expanded.

And then came tension.

That’s interesting to me because nothing necessarily had to be “wrong” for something to stop working.

Sometimes growth creates tension.

Sometimes what worked in one season cannot accommodate who I am becoming in another.

Sometimes the evidence that something needs adjusting isn’t that somebody is terrible, toxic, evil or secretly twirling a mustache in the corner.

Sometimes there just isn’t enough room anymore.

And I don’t particularly enjoy that revelation because I like explanations that give me somebody to blame.

Growth saying, “Nobody is necessarily the villain here, Jazmin. You just need to make an adjustment,” feels incredibly inconvenient.

I would almost prefer an antagonist.

Give me Scar.

Give me Ursula.

Give me Roland Bishop.

Do not give me emotional maturity and tell me to govern myself accordingly.

Yet here we are.

What struck me about Abram and Lot is that Abram had already been told to go.

Genesis 12:1 records God’s instruction for Abram to leave his country, his people and his father’s household and go to the land God would show him.

And Abram went.

But he brought Lot.

Now, loving Lot wasn’t the problem.

Caring about Lot wasn’t the problem.

The question I’m sitting with is whether Abram’s affection made room for something God never actually assigned him to carry.

Because I can do that.

Boy, can I do that.

I can love somebody and quietly turn that love into responsibility.

I can care about what happens to somebody and somehow appoint myself assistant manager of their entire existence.

No application. No interview. No benefits package.

Just me clocking into a position God never hired me for.

And eventually, that becomes exhausting.

Because affection almost always says yes.

Love says yes.

Compassion says yes.

My heart says, “But what if they need me?”

Meanwhile discernment occasionally has the audacity to say no.

And I am learning that no doesn’t always mean I don’t love you.

Sometimes no means I finally understand what belongs to me.

Abram eventually tells Lot that they need to separate.

Not because he hates him.

Not because their entire relationship was fraudulent.

Not because Lot suddenly became disposable.

There simply needed to be an adjustment.

And maybe that’s what I’ve been resisting.

I’ve been asking God for relief without wanting to make the adjustments relief requires.

Because sometimes nothing changes until something changes.

Profound, I know.

Put it on a mug.

But seriously, I have spent plenty of time asking God to change circumstances while gripping the very patterns that keep producing them.

“God, I’m overwhelmed.”

Okay. What are you carrying?

“God, I’m exhausted.”

Okay. Where are you overextended?

“God, I can’t keep doing this.”

Okay. What are you willing to stop doing?

…

Sir.

I was hoping for supernatural intervention, not follow-up questions.

But maybe the miracle isn’t always God removing something.

Maybe sometimes the miracle is God teaching me how to release it.

There are three places I can see where I desperately need to make an adjustment.

My expectations.

My investments.

And my emotions.

My expectations have gotten me into trouble because I can know who someone is and still expect them to behave like who I believe they could become.

That’s a dangerous little hobby.

Potential is beautiful, but potential is not fruit.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, “By their fruit you will recognize them.”

Not their intentions.

Not their apologies.

Not their potential.

Not the version of them I’ve constructed after seventeen rounds of “maybe this time.”

Their fruit.

That doesn’t mean I become cynical. It doesn’t mean I assume the worst about everybody.

It means I stop making expectations based on what I hope someone will eventually produce and begin making decisions based on what is actually growing.

I can love someone without demanding fruit they have repeatedly shown me they are not producing.

That adjustment alone could save me approximately 47 emotional business days a year.

Then there are my investments.

This one hurt.

Because I invest deeply.

Time.

Energy.

Prayer.

Thought.

Resources.

Emotional bandwidth.

Problem solving.

Encouragement.

And because I’ve invested something, I can start feeling responsible for the return.

But stewardship is not ownership.

What I have belongs to God.

My gifts belong to God.

My time belongs to God.

My resources belong to God.

Even my ability to help belongs to God.

And just because I am capable of doing something does not mean I have been called to do it.

Ability is not assignment.

That sentence alone stepped on several of my toes.

Because I have absolutely mistaken “I can help” for “God told me to help.”

Those are not synonymous.

Sometimes discernment needs to happen before investment.

Otherwise I can pour myself into something God never asked me to finance emotionally, spiritually or practically and then become resentful when the return doesn’t match the investment.

And that’s when caring gets ugly.

Because investment without boundaries can eventually become resentment.

Which brings me to the adjustment I probably need most.

My emotions.

Because when I told God yesterday that I wanted to stop caring, I don’t think I actually wanted a hard heart.

I wanted relief.

I wanted five minutes where everything didn’t matter so much.

I wanted to stop feeling responsible for everyone I love.

I wanted to stop noticing everything.

Stop thinking about everything.

Stop wondering whether everybody is okay.

Stop anticipating what might happen.

Stop trying to prevent pain before it arrives.

I didn’t want to become uncaring.

I wanted caring to stop hurting.

And there is a difference.

The problem is, I don’t think God is going to answer that prayer by making me indifferent.

Because my caring is consequential to my calling.

The tenderness that exhausts me when I steward it poorly is also part of what allows me to notice people.

To encourage.

To lead.

To write.

To serve.

To sit with somebody in pain.

To recognize what others overlook.

To love deeply.

I have spent so much time asking God to remove the sensitivity when maybe He wants to teach me how to steward it.

Because the answer to caring too much isn’t necessarily caring less.

Maybe it’s carrying less.

And suddenly I thought about Titanic.

Naturally.

Because apparently Genesis needed Leonardo DiCaprio.

Rose is floating on the door while Jack is in freezing water, and generations of us have been screaming at that television, “SCOOT OVER.”

There was room.

I don’t care what the MythBusters said.

In my spirit, there was room.

But lately I have realized that emotionally, I have been Jack.

Holding onto everybody else’s proverbial floating door while slowly freezing to death.

“You good?”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Need anything?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

Ma’am.

You are turning blue.

At some point caring becomes unhealthy when I believe someone else’s survival requires my drowning.

That isn’t love.

And it isn’t stewardship.

There are people I love whose choices hurt them.

There are people I love who may continue choosing things I wouldn’t choose.

There are situations I desperately want to fix.

There are outcomes I want to control because I know what could happen if nothing changes.

But knowing doesn’t make me God.

Caring doesn’t make me responsible.

And loving someone doesn’t mean climbing into every storm with them.

Lot eventually chose the land near Sodom.

Genesis 13:12-13 tells us that he pitched his tents near Sodom, even though Sodom’s wickedness was already evident.

And eventually, Lot ended up in trouble.

Genesis 14 tells us he was taken captive.

And Abram went to rescue him.

With 318 trained men.

Lot was rescued.

And then eventually?

Lot went right back.

Excuse me?

Because that part will preach directly to my nervous system.

I can expend enormous energy helping someone out of something and still cannot make them stay out of it.

I can rescue.

I can advise.

I can pray.

I can show up.

I can give.

I can warn.

I can love.

However, this also means there has to come a point when my love stops trying to become control.

There has to come a point when I recognize that caring about someone’s choices does not give me authority over their choices.

There has to come a point when I give Lot to God.

Not give up on Lot.

Give Lot up to God.

Those are two very different things.

Maybe that’s what God is teaching me at the end of myself.

I don’t need to become colder.

I need to become lighter.

I don’t need to stop loving.

I need to stop confusing love with responsibility.

I don’t need to stop investing.

I need discernment about where God has actually called me to invest.

I don’t need expectations so low that nobody can disappoint me.

I need expectations aligned with the fruit actually in front of me.

And I don’t need to stop feeling.

I need to stop allowing every feeling to become an assignment.

Because this heart of mine is generous.

And generosity without governance will drain me dry.

My caring matters.

But how I care matters too.

Maybe this isn’t my season of multiplication.

Maybe this is subtraction.

And subtraction doesn’t automatically mean loss.

Sometimes subtraction makes room.

God will never take something I need.

Sometimes He’s showing me what I’ve been carrying, I never needed to carry in the first place.

Maybe some addition really does come through subtraction.

Maybe Abram couldn’t move forward until he was willing to let Lot move differently.

And maybe I cannot move up while insisting on holding onto everything that belonged to the version of me that was merely trying to survive.

So today, my prayer is different.

I’m not asking God to help me stop caring.

I’m asking Him to teach me how to care without disappearing inside of it.

Teach me to love without controlling.

To give without emptying myself.

To help without assuming ownership.

To recognize fruit without judging hearts.

To honor my emotions without letting them run the whole operation.

To know when to reach.

To know when to release.

To know when to rescue.

And God, please teach me when to let Lot go.

Because maybe I don’t need to lose my heart.

Maybe I just need to lose a Lot.

This morning, I’m beginning to understand that losing a Lot might actually save me a lot.