Handing It to Somebody Else

You get asked because you say yes.

That is the whole mechanism and there is nothing sinister about it. A person needs something done, they think of who will actually do it, your name comes up, and it comes up because it has come up before and it worked.

So the requests concentrate. Not because anybody is taking advantage, but because water runs downhill and requests run toward reliability.

And now you are asked for things that have very little to do with your gifts, your calling or your season, purely because you are the one who answers.

Here is the belief I want to get at, and it is the load bearing one.

When a request arrives that somebody else could handle better, you do not pass it on. You do it. And the reason is not that you enjoy it. It is that passing it on feels like handing a person back to the line after they came to you.

That is what I want to look at, because I do not think it holds up, and I think it has cost you a great deal.

They gave away work that mattered

Acts 6 is a chapter about a genuine complaint. Widows are being missed in the daily distribution. It is a real need involving real hunger and real unfairness.

The apostles do not do it.

But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. (Acts 6:4)

I want to sit on how uncomfortable that verse is if you read it honestly.

They are not saying the work does not matter. The chapter opens by treating the complaint as legitimate and the solution as urgent. They are saying that the work is not theirs, and they say it while people are actually going hungry.

And what they do next is the part that matters for you. They do not decline and walk away. They appoint seven men, name them, and hand it over publicly with prayer.

So the choice was never between doing it and abandoning it. There was a third thing, and the third thing was better than either, and the chapter says the word of God increased afterward.

You are looking at a third option that Scripture takes for granted, and it was there before you ever felt trapped between two. Acts 6:4 has men decline urgent work and arrange it for somebody else in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as stewardship rather than as a dodge.

Now notice one more thing, because I think it will surprise you.

The seven who were appointed included Stephen and Philip. Within two chapters, one of them is preaching in a way that changes the whole book and the other is baptizing an Ethiopian on a desert road.

The men who received that handed over work were not lesser men. They were people whose ministry had not started yet, and it started because somebody handed them something.

You have been holding a door shut without meaning to, and it was never only your load that was at stake. Acts 6 gives that work to men who go on to preach and baptize within two chapters. The Spirit of God is the one who can show a person what their yes has been quietly costing somebody else.

Handing on is not handing back

Let me take apart the thing that stops you.

You imagine that passing a request on returns the person to where they started, alone, with a need and nobody to help.

But that is only true if you hand it back. Handing it on is a different act, and the difference is entirely in whether you carry the connection with you.

Handing back sounds like: I cannot, sorry.

Handing on sounds like: I cannot do this one, and I think Marta would be much better at it than me. Would you like me to ask her, or would you rather ask her yourself?

The second one is not less help. In several respects it is more help, because it gives them somebody suited rather than somebody available, and it does the introducing, which is the part they were dreading.

You are able to help without doing it yourself, and the helping was never the same thing as the doing. Acts 6:4 has the apostles arrange the work rather than perform it and the chapter treats that as care, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an introduction feel like a gift instead of like a refusal.

The part about your own calling

There is a sentence in that verse I have not touched yet, and it is the one that gives the whole passage its spine.

We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.

They are not declining in order to have more free time. They are declining toward something, and they say what it is, out loud, in front of everybody.

That matters, because a no with nothing behind it is very hard to hold. A no that is protecting a specific yes holds itself.

So I want to ask a question that most people in this position are never asked. What are you saying yes to?

Not what you would like to. What have you actually been given that only you can do. If you cannot answer that, then every request that arrives will look equally valid, and that is precisely why they all get accepted.

You have something that is yours to do, and it was assigned to you before any of these requests arrived. Acts 6:4 has men name what they are for out loud and let that decide what they are not for. The Spirit of God is the one who can make a calling clear enough to say in a sentence.