Push the Leftovers Aside
Warning: I had words…there are a lot of them. Long post incoming!
This week has been a lot.
It has been one of those weeks when I have found myself caring for people navigating all angles of hurt. I need to stay vague there, and I will. The details are not mine to tell. But the weight of it has been real.
It has been the kind of week that reminds you, all over again, how tangled people are. How tender. How complicated. How pain moves through lives and relationships and communities like a slow leak or a sudden flood. How some people are bleeding. How some are trying to bandage wounds with the same hands they have used to wound someone else. How all of us, in one way or another, are carrying around more than we know what to do with.
And somewhere in the middle of listening, praying, counseling, comforting, and trying to show up with wisdom and steadiness, I got hit with a truth I probably needed to be reminded of more than once.
I desperately need more of Jesus.
Not in the neat and tidy Christian-answer kind of way. Not in the polished “of course we all need Jesus” kind of way. I mean in the actual, down-to-the-bones, honest-before-God kind of way. The kind that admits I am not just a dispenser of encouragement. I am not just a holder of space. I am not just someone helping other people get to the feet of Jesus.
I am someone who needs to be there, too.
The image that has stayed with me this week is this: I need to come to the table and push my cold leftovers out of the way so I can receive the fullness of the meal Jesus has prepared for me each day.
That image has been doing some work on me.
Because, honestly, I have been trying to live on yesterday’s leftovers.
Yesterday’s strength.
Yesterday’s peace.
Yesterday’s grace.
Yesterday’s scraps of spiritual energy
All of them reheated and rearranged, somehow expecting that to be enough for today.
And Jesus, in His kindness, keeps setting a fresh table in front of me.
He does not offer stale crumbs.
He does not hand out spiritual rations with a sigh.
He does not say, “Well, you should have paced yourself better.”
He offers daily bread.
He offers Himself.
But here is where I have to tell on myself a little.
Part of what this week exposed in me is that I do not just struggle with fatigue or sorrow or carrying too much. I struggle with control.
I would really prefer to do some ‘pre-cleaning’ before I come to Jesus.
I would like to tidy up my heart a little first. Organize my emotions. Sort the mess into neat little piles. Get my attitude under control. Sweep up the obvious debris. Put a decent face on the whole thing. Maybe then I can sit down at the table like someone who at least made a respectable effort.
Which, when I say it out loud, is both absurd and revealing.
Holy heck, Stacy!
As if I could somehow do the pre-work of Jesus.
As if the softening of my heart, the healing of my wounds, the cleansing of my motives, the steadying of my soul, the transforming of my mind begins with me doing enough emotional housekeeping to make His job easier.
That is such a wild assumption.
And yet I think a lot of us live there more than we realize. We may not say it out loud. We may not even fully believe it when it is phrased that plainly. But we live as though Jesus is easier to approach once we have managed ourselves into a slightly more acceptable version.
So we edit. We bring Him the cleaned-up version.
The calmer version.
The version that has already had a pep talk.
The version that has repented enough to sound sincere but not enough to feel undone.
The version that has almost figured it out.
The version that says, “Don’t worry, Lord, I have already started working on this.”
As if grace is for the finishing touches.
As if Jesus is best used for what is left after we have done the serious prep work.
As if surrender starts after self-management.
I have a suspicion I am not the only one who does this. Maybe you do too.
Maybe you are the one everyone else comes to when life caves in a little.
Maybe you are the helper, the steady one, the one who knows how to pray with people, sit with people, encourage people, feed people, organize people, love people.
Maybe you are so practiced in showing up for others that you have quietly forgotten how to show up honestly before God yourself.
Maybe you are functioning beautifully on the outside and starving on the inside.
Maybe you are serving meals to everyone around you while trying to survive on cold leftovers yourself.
Maybe you keep thinking you just need to get a little more rested, a little more organized, a little more emotionally regulated, a little less reactive, a little less messy, a little more spiritually impressive, and then you will come to Jesus with the real stuff.
But Jesus is not asking for our polished leftovers.
He is inviting us to a feast.
That is part of why the song More Like Jesus by Passion has had me in tears for days now. And yes, in peak ADHD fashion, it has been on repeat enough times that I’m glad no one is in the car with me, and that I wear AirPods when I’m at home!
But there is a reason it keeps catching me in the throat. The words are not performing anything. They are surrendering.
“If more of You means less of me, take everything.”
That line sounds beautiful until you realize it is asking for actual surrender.
Real surrender.
Take the control.
Take the image management.
Take the need to look strong.
Take the part of me that wants to be needed.
Take the part of me that confuses usefulness with intimacy.
Take the self-protection.
Take the pride that hides under preparedness.
Take the fear that says if I really let go, everything will fall apart.
Take the quiet belief that I need to help Jesus help me.
Take everything.
That is not a small prayer.
And it is not even a one-time prayer.
It is daily.
Sometimes hourly.
Sometimes moment by moment.
It is the prayer of a heart that keeps trying to crawl back into the driver’s seat and is slowly learning that Jesus does not need a co-pilot for the work of sanctification.
It is the prayer of someone who wants to be transformed but would really prefer a detailed outline of how painful that might be and whether there might be a gentler, more efficient route available.
It is the prayer of someone who keeps discovering that the way of Jesus is not self-improvement with a Bible verse attached. It is surrender. Death and resurrection. Empty hands. Open heart. Daily bread.
And maybe that is where some of us are right now.
Not necessarily in a dramatic collapse.
Not in some giant, obvious rebellion.
Just in that quieter, subtler place where we are tired, overextended, soul-hungry, and still weirdly committed to managing ourselves before we come to Christ.
We say we need Him, but often what we mean is that we need Him to help the version of us that is still in charge.
We want His peace without relinquishing control.
His comfort without confession.
His nearness without vulnerability.
His filling without our emptying.
But that is not how tables work.
You do not sit down to a feast already full. You come hungry.
You do not come to the table to prove you can cook. You come because someone else has prepared the meal.
You do not bring your cold leftovers and ask the Host to bless them into something fresh. You slide them out of the way and receive what is being offered.
And Jesus is such a merciful Host.
He is not annoyed by our need.
He is not rolling His eyes because we are back again with the same fears, the same griefs, the same controlling tendencies, the same tired souls.
He is not standing there with crossed arms waiting for us to get ourselves together.
He asks us to come.
Come tired.
Come tangled.
Come grieving.
Come embarrassed by how controlling you still are.
Come with the hurt you are carrying.
Come with the hurt you have caused.
Come with your complicated motives and your genuine love and your mixed-up heart and your very real need.
Come hungry.
That invitation matters to me this week, because I have seen again how easy it is in ministry, in caregiving, in leadership, in friendship, in family life, in all the people-facing parts of our lives, to become so focused on making sure everyone else is okay that we lose touch with our own dependence on Jesus.
We start giving people what only God can sustain in us, while quietly skipping the part where we are sustained by Him.
We begin to mistake responsibility for abiding.
We confuse being needed with being faithful.
We assume proximity to spiritual things is the same as communion with Christ.
It is not.
Being around holy things is not the same as being filled by the Holy One.
And sometimes a hard week reveals that.
Sometimes caring for others becomes the mirror that shows us our own hunger.
Sometimes listening to someone else’s heartbreak makes us realize how guarded our own hearts have become.
Sometimes trying to help carry someone else to Jesus reminds us that we have been standing near the table without actually sitting down to eat.
So maybe this post is for me.
But maybe it is also for you.
For the one who is trying so hard to be strong.
For the one who is carrying too many stories and too much sorrow.
For the one who keeps promising themselves they will spend time with Jesus after they catch up, calm own, finish the task, clean the kitchen, answer the email, make the call, get the attitude right, stop crying, start trying, do better.
For the one who still believes, somewhere deep down, that Jesus prefers the presentable version.
He does not.
He wants you.
Not the edited you.
Not the managed you.
Not the halfway-fixed you.
You.
And if more of Him means less of us, then as terrifying and beautiful as it is, that is still the better bargain.
Because less of my control means more room for His peace.
Less of my striving means more room for His rest.
Less of my performance means more room for His grace.
Less of my illusion of strength means more room for His actual strength.
Less of my leftovers means more room for the feast.
I need to push the leftovers aside.
I need to come hungry.
I need to come honest.
I need to come as I am.
And I need to let Him feed me with what only He can give.
Maybe you do too.
So, if your soul feels thin this week, if your heart feels overfull and undernourished, if you have been trying to hold yourself together before coming to God, consider this your invitation.
Push the leftovers aside.
Come to the table.
And let the One who knows you completely love you there, feed you there, and make you more like Jesus in the way only He can.
