Visit from Mr. Nobody--Will Byler Asks an Interesting Question

Last weekend Mr. Nobody came to visit.

But first, let me tell you about somebody else.

No sooner did our friends the Albertsons move on than we received another visitor, Bro. Will Byler, president of Mission Helps under which Jonathan is construction manager.

The two of them stood admiring the sunset over Pikes Peak just after Bro. Byler's arrival.

Jonathan showed him the Spanish Peaks off to the southwest as well.

It was Sam's night to spend at the fire station again. He had stayed Friday night at the station as well, to make room for our ten or eleven extra visitors when the Albertsons and crew came through!

Bro. Byler was so kind to spend time talking to the younger children about their bird watching and photography. He is a man who is so empty of himself that he finds value in everyone else.

His godly influence pervades the atmosphere around him, but it is coupled with grace, mercy, and humility which makes it possible for him to enjoy being in the Lucas home!

Yes, despite his position as leader of Mission Helps, his passion for missions, and his being sought after by leaders in church circles, he spent parts of three days in the Lucas home and petted rabbits and followed the boys around the farm after doing chores, and spent the whole trip to church Sunday morning looking at Danny's and Hannah's bird notebooks and asking them all about their drawings.

He was able to do stuff like that because one day he made a decision to be a nobody.  

And as we were talking about different things, he asked an interesting question.

"What would it mean to you to be a nobody?" he asked.

Like we haven't felt that way for a long time. 

But what if you were always trained that being a nobody for Jesus meant leaving worldly ambitions and quitting your job of making money and instead going and teaching, pastoring, preaching, being a missionary, singing, playing, testifying, giving, serving, and otherwise performing for and within the kingdom of God, especially the church?
What if only God knows what it really means and what it really costs deep down inside
to have that whole concept turned upside down on its head
and for you to become a different kind of nobody--

someone that just washes windows before company comes,
someone that just offers a cup of water,
or coffee,
or a pallet on the floor,
or a loaf of homemade sourdough bread to someone just out of surgery?
What if it means cleaning up doggie piles on a consistent basis behind dogs and puppies belonging to a daughter you are trying to help through college,
and cleaning up other people's stuff, and helping a grumpy child do his geometry?
While you watch other families singing and playing up front like you used to do,

and other missionaries sharing their stories like you used to do,

and other church people put into offices you used to have,

and other people teaching in lovely schools 

and working in neat offices?
And you are left somewhere in the dirt underneath the doggie shovel or the muddy boots slogging around horse pies in the pasture.

 

But what if a nobody was so empty of self that he could find value in everyone around him?
What if he could somehow clean his boots each day and forget about everything he ever learned to do, and learn patience in things he must simply endure? What if he could learn, like Uncle Tom's cabin's characters, to sing, not on platforms, but in the middle of pain?
 Some of their songs weren't much more than what we call "seven-eleven" songs now--
seven words sung eleven times.
But that's what slaves sang when they did not have the energy to come up with the classical pieces of the rich and the classy and the masters and the people who had time and peace and inspiration.
They sang simple, pathetic words that somehow spanned the space between the dirt and the pain and the heaven they longed for someday.

And they were nobodies.
Simple slaves who picked cotton and ground meal and dusted the massah's boots
and served the meal to mistress.
   
Yet their simple songs are remembered to this day--
"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen,
Nobody knows, but Jesus!"
Jesus became a nobody, too, so that He could meet us where we are and help us in our needs.
He said, "Follow Me," and that means becoming a nobody, too.
Jonathan and I have been nobodies for a long time.
Sometimes I have chafed under it because I was trained for excellence in studying, singing, music, teaching, writing, missionary work, and "full time Christian service."
So sometimes you kind of have to throw away your training and simply become a follower--
just a follower of Christ.
Now we know another of the names for a follower of Christ--a Nobody.
So now there are Mr. and Mrs. Nobody in Colorado along with the Mr. Nobody from Pennsylvania.
And we'll just see what God can do with nobodies.
(Except, as Bro. Byler reminded us, what God does with nobodies usually is unseen.)