Withhold Nothing

“How am I supposed to pay to park here?” I had finally found a parking space on a crowded street a few blocks from my son’s apartment. Stacy and I were helping him move in to start his third year of college. I was in a rush, downloading an app to pay for my spot, when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this kid lingering.

He looked to be 19 or 20 years old. Short, dark hair. Wearing jeans and a short-sleeve Dri-Fit shirt that said “National Guard” on it. He was pacing only a couple of yards, back and forth, fumbling with his pockets, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands; and he was getting closer to me.

But I paid it no mind and stayed focused on my phone. Then the kid came up to me and said, “Excuse me, sir. Can I ask you a question?” I have to be honest: it kind of triggered me. Whenever strangers call me “sir,” I assume that I’ve either done something wrong, or that I’m going to be asked to take a survey or sign a petition or donate money or… It just bothers me. And I was bothered.

So, I answered him, “Sure,” while I kept tapping information into my phone. He said, “If you had something you needed to tell somebody and it was burning a hole in your heart, but you were worried how they might take it, would you tell them?”

On its face the question was serious, but I remained guarded, skeptical. Was this guy about to hand me a tract and tell me about the Good News? Tell me I had to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior or I’d risk bursting into flames right there on that sidewalk? Was he going to give me a business card and try selling me on a pyramid scheme? The anxious hamster in my brain was running 90 miles per hour on a wheel of skepticism. I kept my guard up, but I answered his question honestly.

“If the person is elderly or infirm, and you’re concerned that what you have to tell them might affect their emotional wellbeing or their physical health, if what you have to say might threaten them in that way, I’d tread lightly. But if, like you say, this thing is burning a hole in your heart”—and the kid nodded when I said that—“if it’s eating you up that much and the person can take it, then I’d say what you have to say to them.”

The young man said, “Yeah, he’s 40.” I said, “Well, I’m 51, and people have told me a lot of shocking stuff. So, I think they can take it.” I looked up from my phone again, shrugged my shoulders, and said, “That’s my advice.”

He put his hands in his pockets, looked at the ground pensively, and then nodded his head and said, “Ok. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. I just didn’t have anyone else to talk to.” And then he walked off.

Finally, I paused. I pushed my anxiousness to the side and stopped thinking about what I was doing, and I thought about what had just happened. A kid had walked up to a stranger on the street and asked him for permission to beg a question about the thing burning a hole in his heart, and what he should do about it; and I received his desperate vulnerability with apprehension. In that epiphany moment, I imagined that maybe this is what Peter and the disciples felt like when Jesus exposed yet another dense thing they’d done, or another aloof thing they’d said.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes that love “does not insist on its own way,” and that love “endures all things.” By holding the young man at arms’ length, I had withheld love from him. And Jesus teaches in Matthew 18 that whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, which I discerned in that moment as whatever we withhold on earth being withheld in heaven. How can I pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven if I withhold what is meant to be set free on a sidewalk close to campus as it is set free on the streets of paradise?

It reminded me of when I was at the Texas-Mexico border close to a bus station, and there were people there whose asylum claim had just been been processed. Their next step after walking onto U.S. soil was to get to the city where they would have a court date securing their asylum claim—securing their safety from the harm they had fled. And one of them had written in large block letters on the manila envelope of instructions they had received, “Please help me. I do not speak English. What bus do I take? Thank you for your help.”

I looked a few yards down the sidewalk and saw the young man talking on the phone. I watched him end the call, hang his head, and slump down with his face in his hands. I walked toward him, and he stood up and started walking in my direction. I looked at him and he looked at me, and I held out my hand and he took it, and I told him my name, and he told me his, and I asked him, “Are you a danger to yourself? Are you at risk of hurting yourself?” He shook his head and told me “no,” that he wasn’t.

He was crying. I asked him, “Did you tell them?” He nodded his head and said that it didn’t go well, said that he had taken money from his parents without their knowing to make a down payment on a car. “They love you, don’t they?” I asked him. He nodded, wiped a tear away, and took a deep, slow breath. I can’t say how much longer we talked after that, but I wasn’t anxious anymore about where I was going or what I was supposed to be doing. All that mattered was that I withhold nothing, that I keep no love from this child of God who had no one else to talk to.

We parted ways with another handshake. He thanked me for being there, and I thanked him for reaching out. I don’t know how things turned out with his parents, or if the young man had to return the car, or if he’s feeling better or worse today than he did that morning talking with this stranger on the sidewalk. But I do know that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” I do know that “love never ends.” And knowing this, I trust that I will do better the next time someone needs me to withhold nothing.