Waiting for an Invitation

Today, in a class of mine, I shared a story about my work and received an unsolicited piece of advice in return. What the advice was is unimportant, because the point is that I did not ask for any input. The person phrased it in terms of, "I'm just pointing this our because I'm worried for you and concerned about this for you." But did that change the way I felt? Nope. Because I had not asked his opinion, and yet out of concern, he gave it anyway. The thing is, this guy may very well be right. He might have told me exactly what I needed to hear. But I did not invite his opinion and I found his comment incredibly off-putting. He taught me very little but distanced our relationship very much. Truthfully, maybe I should have had ears that were more ready to hear. But I didn't. And the fact that I did not as was evidence of this. And one day, if things don't go well and I do need help and I do have ears to hear, I will remember him as the person who bugged me, and I would not choose him to go to for help if failure or frustration made me receptive. He treated me like his client, but I did not think of him as my counselor. I write this to remind myself that sometimes getting the truth out there is not whole point. Sometimes (even, most of the time?) teaching the other person through experience that you are a safe, loving, gracious place to come to so that they will come to you to ask ONCE they want input is a greater good than forcing our truth on someone who will not receive it and will just be annoyed by us. People who want to be clients invite in a counselor. Even Jesus usually waits to be invited to help or to save (Mark 10:51, Romans 10:13) - He doesn't muscle His way in. He teaches us through love and acceptance and grace that He is the one to come to when rock bottom makes us teachable and gives us ears to hear, when we finally are receptive to help because having to ask made us humble. I need to remember this lesson before I aim my counseling skills at everyone who shares his or her story with me.