What Andy Stanley said

Besides tripping over an old lady in a wheel chair, the Catalyst conference last week had plenty to offer. One of the speakers, Andy Stanley, challenged us to “do for one, what you wish you could do for many.” (Of course, it may have been RANDY Stanley, as he apparently has a doppelganger.)

He said that the reason many of us don’t act on someone’s behalf is because we are overwhelmed by all the needs. He also said we may suffer from a fear of “fairness.” We feel that we can’t help one person out because then we will have to help out everyone. It’s only fair. You know this line. If you have kids, you probably use it all the time. “If I give you a car, I have to give your baby sister one too.” Or maybe at work, “If I make your copies, I’ll have to make them for everyone.” The problem with fairness, he said, is that it ended in the garden of Eden.

After my wife and I decided to adopt our son Matthew from Ethiopia, we found out he had two older sisters. It never really crossed my mind that if we adopted him, we would have to adopt them too. That is, until we were sitting in a meeting talking to our case worker and my wife asked about them. She wanted to know if we could find out if they were ever put up for adoption. And then came the direct question from our case worker: would you want to adopt them too? Humanly, I did not feel that we were capable in that moment of saying yes. But as soon as she asked the question, I found my eyes welling up with tears. In my heart I was saying, yes, yes we would. But we actually said that we didn’t know what we would do.

Andy Stanley had a good point. We can’t worry about fairness when making a decision to help somebody. We just need to help them. We shouldn’t play the “what if” game. We shouldn’t feel bad if we can’t help everyone. We should just roll up our sleeves, and do what we can in the moment.

Is there anything you’ve been putting off?