I have my friend Emily to thank for introducing me to Bob Goff. 'You have to read Love Does, Jen, you'll love it. He sounds like you!' Obviously I had to read it, if only to find out whether this was a compliment. It turned out it was, although not one entirely deserved. Bob is funnier and far more accomplished, energetic and daring than me. But his simple message that love – real love, Love with a capital 'L', the love Jesus embodied – shows up and does things is one on which I am completely sold.
Two years ago my life was interrupted by an experience of Love I still struggle to explain. My family and I had recently relocated to the US and things had not been going to plan. Any illusion of control or security had been shattered. It was a dark time and I was lonely and afraid. One day I felt a nudge to pray and, sensing that I was not alone and that things would be OK, I finally let go and admitted how awful I was feeling. I was gripped by terrifying fear and an emptiness that felt vast and bottomless. Suddenly, and in an instant, everything shifted. Love flooded in and I was filled with peace and joy and an awareness that there was nothing this Love could not achieve, no dark place it couldn't reach, no sadness it couldn't heal.
Later I came to think of this as an experience of perfect Love casting out fear. From that moment I had a confidence that Love is more real, more powerful than fear and that the victory has already been won. I knew then that the only thing that mattered from now on was to build my life on this firm foundation and to let that Love flow; to open myself to receive it and allow it flow through me. I stopped looking for ways to make my life safe and secure and started to see life as a place where Love could be experienced and shared. Things kept going 'wrong' but, lapses aside, I wasn't afraid any more. I had confidence that Love would be guiding everything and all would be well in the end, however it looked to me in the moment.
Fast forward two years and what I've learnt is that when you open yourself to receiving and giving extravagant love, life becomes an adventure but a complicated one. When you ask God to open your eyes to those who need love you can never unsee the seemingly endless pain, the loneliness, the hurting. But of course you don't love one person at a time, you love everyone all the time.
And so things get messy. Even if your intention is to love without agenda or boundaries, it is inevitable that demands and needs overlap and compete. You might not want to pull back or say no, but sometimes you must because you have to pick up your children from school or someone just vomited. There are times when you have to leave someone to keep a meeting and other times when you have to cancel the meeting so you can stay with someone. Sometimes you have to withdraw because you are in need of solitary prayer or some sleep or to have some fun with your family.
On a good day, I feel excited to be caught up in the work of Love. But, if I'm honest, a lot of the time I have a nagging sense that I'm letting people down; that I am failing to be as available to everyone as I want to be, that in trying to be available to one person I am unavailable to another. I try to trust that my blundering attempts are acceptable to God, that he sees my heart and has everything under control but guilt creeps in without me noticing.
At moments when I feel close to burnout, my friends and family encourage me to pull back and introduce more boundaries but Bob is an ever present voice in my head, reminding me to be radically available, just like Jesus.
In Everybody Always he writes: 'These days I get lots of telephone calls because I left my cell number in the back of almost a million copies of my last book, Love Does. Jesus was available to everyone, and I am reminded of the power of engaging strangers as I field dozens of calls from them daily. People don't follow vision; they follow availability. I don't send people to voicemail any more. Try it for a week. Loving people the way Jesus did means living a life filled with constant interruptions. Take the calls, Interrupt your days. Be excessively available and you'll be just like Jesus.'
This sounds exciting and wonderful but is it realistic for anyone besides Jesus himself or, perhaps, those followers who happen to be extremely extroverted insomniacs? How does he maintain this level of availability without burning out? Does he really have no boundaries at all?
Usually these questions would remain rhetorical but because I have Bob's books, I also have his phone number. Having plucked up some courage and said a prayer, I phoned him and he answered on the first ring.
I was expecting Bob to tell me that I needed to use my rest time more wisely or to persevere or maybe to get some perspective and stop whinging. But he didn't. He neither told me to put in boundaries nor avoid them altogether. Instead, he told me to ask myself regularly: 'Who's sitting in my chair? How is this working for me and for those around me? He told me some introspection is good. He said I should think about all the responsibilities in my life as spokes on a wheel and to let the wheel turn and not let anything get wrapped around the axle.
I asked him if he ever withdraws and he said 'Yes, absolutely.' For three months a year he's off the grid, living off the land in Canada with his family. He encouraged me to 'keep navigating this', to be patient in my attempts to find balance. He reminded me to breathe and told me to be less hard on myself: 'It's not good for the horse always to be in the stable eating the hay, but it's also not good for the horse always to be out in the field running itself ragged.'
Towards the end of our 10-minute conversation he suddenly declared, 'I think you should get a puppy.' 'Why?' I asked, laughing, thinking what a Bob Goff thing to say this was. 'Because then you'll be so busy cleaning up real poop that you won't have time to worry about the imaginary poop you might be leaving behind.'
I've been pondering that last piece of advice ever since. I have found great comfort in the thought that messing up is not necessarily a sign you're doing a bad job of following Jesus but, rather, an unavoidable part of the messy business of loving people. Just like training a puppy, the poop is inevitable. There are always going to be conflicting demands on us and we are all flawed beings who have physical and emotional needs to which we must attend from time to time. We are bound to make mistakes and sometimes even the right decision will receive a poor reception. We can't expect everybody to affirm us all the time. But we can have confidence that we have a master who walks before us and who gently guides us and patiently cleans up after us. A master who has already done the work and won the victory and simply invites us to follow him. A master who forgives and redeems our mess and who promises us rest whenever we need it.
So did I take Bob's advice and get a puppy? Not yet. But when I do I'm naming it Bob.
Jennifer Goodyer is a writer and artist living in Chicago. Follow her on Twitter @goodyerjen
Bob Goff's 'Love Does' can be ordered here.
