Up to me or up to God?

November 28, 2014

When someone is in need, it is my instinct to step in. What God has been showing me though, is that sometimes, He wants to step in, and He is simply calling me to sit back and watch. Unfortunately, I am much less patient than He is, and sometimes, I move too quickly.

I wish that I only had one personal example of this to share. I wish, that I didn't rush ahead of God so often in life. But I am learning.

It is by making mistakes that we learn. 

When we know better, we do better.

I will share just one story with you today because it is a beautiful story of grace and redemption. Those are my favorite kinds of stories.

There is a wonderful woman who helps us around the house here, in Uganda. Sometimes she sorts and cooks the beans, sometimes she helps with cleaning. She is a hard-worker and a good friend. We attend Bible study together and a mid-week church service. She also manages the house that she lives in.

In theory, that means she is responsible for collecting rent from the 15+ tenants and getting it to the owner each month in exchange for free rent for her family.

Sounds like a great position, except:

·         The tenants only pay when they feel like it…and that is not on-time or often.
·         The owner is corrupt, demeaning and deceitful.
·         Uganda has a law that says you need to allow a tenant 3 months rent-free before you can evict them.
·         The owner doesn’t care about this law and expects my friend to break the law to evict them.

So, I have known that my friend’s job was stressful for her, and that others have advised her to get out of the position, but she had never asked me for advice, so we hadn’t talked about it much.

Until she came to me not asking for advice, but asking for money.

The owner had come banging on her door that morning demanding 500,000 Ugandan Shillings ($200 USD). He was threatening and screaming and told her that she had one hour to bring him the full amount.

By the time she had arrived at my gate, she was in tears and had exhausted all of her resources. A friend lent her a portion of the money, but now, here she was, asking if I could lend her the rest. Of course, she had hoped to collect rent from those refusing in order to pay both the friend and me back.

In my American mind, the 120 bucks that she needed was no skin off my back. It was an amount that I was willing to lose to help a friend. Even if she never got the rent, it wouldn’t have a negative impact on my life. Unfortunately, my focus was only on myself and how this affected me rather than thinking about how my “help” would affect my friend.

She is someone who makes about 100,000 shillings in a month. Her husband works 12 hour days, 7 days per week and makes just about the same. To her family, this is an extraordinary amount of money.

In the moment, in the emergency, in the tears, I gave her the money. She paid the owner and peace was restored…temporarily.

No sooner had I handed her the money than the error of my ways came to mind.

• What would my lending her an amount that she could never pay back do to her pride or to our relationship?

• How does my rescue empower her for the future?

• What could God do, or is He already trying to do to grow and prepare her? Who am I to interfere with that?

• What was going to happen next month? I know that the owner is deceitful. Who’s to say he won’t come demanding more next week?

• Did I really do any good or did I simply do what was easiest for me?

Within a few days, some rent was collected. She was able to pay me back half of what I lent her. I was impressed, but I also knew that God was calling me to do something more...and it had nothing to do with this month’s rent demand.

I asked if I could sit down with her and look at records she kept of rent paid and money demanded. She was happy to have input and to have someone listen to the cry of her heart.

For the past 3 years she had been functioning completely out of fear. She was worn down and worn out. She didn’t want to do this job any more, but whenever she tried to quit, the abuse from the owner would begin again. He told her she was stupid and that she owed him so much money that she could never leave. He showed her a figure of 4.8 million shillings that he said somehow she owed him.

I had very little idea how the system in Uganda worked, but what I did know was scary. Death threats, missing paperwork and false accusations are all too common if you end up on the wrong side of someone willing to bribe officials. I knew that I could not afford to risk my family’s safety, and I didn’t know if I truly had any help to offer her, but I trusted that God would provide what words I was lacking.  

In one afternoon we were able to do some math together and see that her rent had never actually been free and that he was demanding more money from her each month than was covered by the tenants rent. Because no one paid on a set schedule, she never added it all up and just gave him money as it came in.

The tears came as her greatest fear was realized. She felt as stupid as he had always said she was.

I know very little about business and finance, but I was able to speak truth into her life. I was able to encourage her and remind her that she was a beloved child of God and that His plan for her was not this life of fear.

I wanted so badly to march into that owner’s office and give him a piece of my mind. I was angry for the way that he had taken advantage of my friend for years. I was in fight mode.

But, this was not my fight.

You see, when we are called into a situation where someone needs help, more often than not, we are called to empower them to help themselves. I was not being asked to be a rescuer, a savior. I was called to point her to her Savior, the one who created her and promised to always give her strength. She had lost sight of how God sees her, and she needed to be reminded.

We talked about steps she could take to protect herself, to defend herself, and to get her out of this position. We made a plan, we role played some dialogue, and as her confidence grew, I saw the anger rise up in her. Not anger aimed at the owner, but anger that she had let her life get to this point. Anger that she had allowed someone to treat her this way for so long.

It was an emotion that convicted her heart and demanded a change.

Before she left, we prayed. We prayed hard for courage and strength. We prayed that the owner would by some miracle have a kind and compassionate heart. We prayed that he would allow her to quit.

I told her to call me after she met with the owner.

I didn’t hear from her for a few days. Each day I prayed that her courage would not waver as the days passed, but I feared that it would. I feared that she was too deep in this and that change was not possible.

I didn’t catch her before mid-week service, but when we got in the car to drive home, she said, “I have something to tell you, but I couldn’t do it over the phone.”  My heart sank.

Then, a smile stretched from one side of her face to the other as she told me all about how she walked into his office with confidence and told him that she was done with this work and that there was no way she would ever be able to repay the amount he was asking for and that she refused to try any longer. She told him that she had to borrow money to pay his demands and that she deserved to collect enough rent to pay back her debts.

She told me that she had never felt that strong in front of him. Usually, she just sat and listened and never said a word, but this time was different.

And you know what? The owner said he understood. He accepted her quitting, but he asked if she would continue just until he found someone new. He considered her debt erased and she was welcome to stay living in the house if she wanted to. She was to collect the money needed to pay back her debts to her friends and then, if he hadn’t found a replacement, bring any further rent to him. There would be no more demands.

She had no idea what to say. She had expected a fight.

God had other plans.

**************************************

And now, a week later, she laughs as she tells me that she thinks she walks differently, taller even. “Why do I feel that way?” she asks.

That is what power and confidence and pride feel like, I tell her. All foreign feelings to her.

She did it.

She did what she could and God did what she couldn’t.

She had read about prayers being answered. She believed that God could answer prayers.

Today though, today she lived it. God reached right down into her life and answered her prayer.

I love seeing everyday how this new found confidence is impacting her life. She paid back her other friend, and she has paid me back in full. She feels like she has a fresh start.

I am glad that I didn’t continue to try and “help” her out of this situation.

Helping can be done wrong in a million ways. Speaking truth, reminding someone of their worth, empowering them to want better and to do better for themselves: with these you simply can't go wrong.