Unlearning for Lent - The Need to Fix Everyone

It can feel noble at first. We want to help, we want to guide, we want to say the right thing at the right moment and move someone toward clarity or healing. But over time, that impulse can become… less than helpful.  We begin to carry responsibility that was never ours, or even worse, care becomes control.

In Mark 10, a rich young man approaches Jesus with an earnest question. And the scriptures specifically tell us that ,”Jesus looks at him and loves him”, and it frames it in that way because the next thing Jesus does is speak a hard truth.

The man hears Jesus’ words and walks away grieving, and Jesus? He lets him go. He doesn’t chase him down or adjust his message to make it easier.  He doesn’t force the man to transform.  He lets him go.

I think that moment is instructive. Even Jesus did not compel change, rather he told the truth in love and then left room for freedom.

Unlearning the need to fix everyone does not mean that we stop caring. It means we remember that our calling is faithfulness, not control.

Lent invites us to loosen our grip on outcomes and trust that God is at work in hearts in ways we cannot understand, or imagine, or manage.

Reflection question:
Where might you be carrying responsibility for someone else’s growth that belongs to God instead?