This principle challenges me daily. You see, I have a bit of a people problem.
“Dad, when I grow up I want to build a cabin in the wood and be a hermit,” I still remember saying to my dad as a boy. I think I had just learned what a hermit was and it seemed like a good fit for my introverted personality. My dad replied, “You can’t do that!” He said it with so much feeling that I was taken back. I remember feeling hurt. Living alone sounded about perfect for me.“Why not? I love the woods and people exhaust me.” He explained that God’s plan is all about people and if I lived in the woods by myself I would miss out on His work.” I groaned out loud and my dad laughed. “I wanted to be a hermit, too, when I was a boy, but I grew out of it.”
Well, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t grown out of it. Groups of people still exhaust me. I prefer a day of solitude to going to the state fair, but I took my father’s lesson to heart. God values people and being a part of His ongoing work often means spending time with and investing in people. So I try my best.
For those of you who are like me, I have found that having a few, deeper relationships is better than many shallow relationships. Natural-born hermits live on a social budget. We must spend our reserves wisely. Usually, on the people God has given us direct responsibility for, family and a few friends.
In addition, I have found that there are ways of investing in eternal things that are less people immersive. What I’m doing now, in writing this book, is one of those things. Hopefully, these chapters will help more people than I could ever talk to in the flesh. Every family needs to set their parenting priorities. Every parent needs to wrestle with the influences and threats around them and make a plan to protect and prepare their kids to thrive despite them. Despite my “people problem,” I can help encourage people to step into the gap between their kids and the wolves.
