Getting It?

I know it is easy to throw rocks at each other. I must confess that as I share my journey with doing community/neighborhood work that too often I’m talking about my self both as a kid and as an aging adult. I know that Jesus was quick to say don’t fixate on the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log sticking out of your own eye. Yet, the tendency of all is to be quick to see the faults of others and really believe that they’ve got it all together.

Last night as I’m picking up kids for tutoring one of my younger guy teens pulls out his lighter and flicks it. It was dark now so it stuck out immediately regardless of the other stoolies in the van. I don’t lose my cool but confiscate the lighter and we finish picking up the group for doing tutoring. After I drop off the vanload I talk with this teen. I ask the obvious question about what would happen if he had done this in Grandma’s SUV? His response was expected, “I would get in real trouble.” so my response was just the same, “So what consequence do you think should happen because of your actions?”

I know that most guys in today’s world have lighters handy to either light up or just to have for fun. I can relate to being a pyro a little bit. I loved starting fires especially as an Eagle Scout that camped often. What annoyed me was after handing out the punishment, you have to miss tutoring and stay in the van, I discover that he had already reclaimed the lighter and it was back in his pocket. Oops! I took it back and then debated whether I call grandma, wait or let him confess to her.

As we are in the middle of tutoring I get a call from a homeless teen that we have been helping over the last month or so. He has been through some difficult situations and made some good steps to figuring it out and then also some poor choices that are confusing. He texts me and says it is a personal emergency and needs to talk. I text back and remind him we are in the middle of tutoring and don’t have time till later that night. He had already ticked me off when he asked for advice about what he should do with finding $200 in an envelope inside a bathroom at a local grocery store. The challenge was that he had already used the money and made the false assumption that it was his because he found it. I know it was easy for a homeless guy to think that God has supplied him with rent money and some extra change for cigs and a Thirst-quencher.

I really don’t like to talk while driving especially with a very sensitive topic that is not for anyone else to hear. So I call him back and hear some news which isn’t a shock but very sad to realize that he has gotten someone else into trouble and needs to resolve the situation. My response was that his actions had already created a situation that is beyond help and he needed to be totally honest and work with this other person. My frustration mounts when I realize that he could have talked to me a week or so before with the same news but had chosen to be silent.

After talking with someone else about this homeless teen’s circumstance I realize I have been used and need to confront the guy. I don’t enjoy having to be asking tough questions but at this juncture it is the only way I can relate back to him. So I text after a morning meeting and he calls me and the first question I ask was, why aren’t you at work? He knew I was upset already and didn’t have a quick come back which was preferred. I told him under the circumstances he needed to be at his telemarketing job and no excuse would cut it.

I continued with a few questions that pushed the point that he hadn’t been honest with me from the beginning and then put me in a situation where he had connected with some of my friends. It was these friends who I believed he had used in a deceptive fashion to get help. I explained that the games were over and that from this day forward he had to be on the right track or I couldn’t talk or help anymore. I know in the past when we had talked this way that he was close to tears and either couldn’t talk or was afraid to come clean.

We finish our conversation and I explain unless he fills me in on his poor choices that I couldn’t help any more. I know it is easy for anyone reading this to be quick to judge this teen and be quick to ‘beat him up’ for wasting an opportunity in getting real help. Yet, the reality is that I’m not much different. As an adult I can do pretty much anything I want and get away with it because no one but God is looking over my shoulder. I know that there is redemption and forgiveness for this guy, anyone or myself when we confess our circumstances and ask God for help. The challenge is whether any of us will follow through or just talk about doing it.

“Getting it” is part of everyone’s life but age and circumstances make it different for a young mom to understand how to juggle life between little kids, doing the house work and loving her husband who works outside the home. I also know that any of my teens who have grown up without any credible life examples that it is also difficult to know what they should do in any circumstance. Please pray for my young teen that loves lighters and my older teen that is living on the street.