I've always been one for trying to save people.

It's in my nature. I am addicted to the broken. In my crudest form, I feel great achievement when I can say I've made someone "change their ways."

Though my conscious masks this as a desire to help people and see them have success, my subconscious knows what this truly is: pride. I am arrogant, and if I can change people, I see myself from a narcissistic lens and believe that I was the power at be that made them better.

Oh, how wrong I have been.

I have spent my whole life trying to save people who didn't want to be saved. I would secretly take credit for the small steps they would make, considering myself to be the person who inspired them to radically turn their lives around.

The truth was, they never turned their lives around.

Those small steps meant very little, and I was by no means the power-at-be who deserved credit for them.

After a while, I grew humbler (albeit only vaguely). Though I believed that God was using me to change people and I couldn’t do it without Him, I also believed that God couldn't do it without me. We tag-teamed to make a change, to make the world a better place one person at a time.

I felt so powerful; so in control, set apart and chosen to be the one person who would work with God to make a difference. I was special! Especially so.

Even typing out these evident character flaws makes me nauseous.

I was so insufferable, arrogant, and pretentious. I didn't think I was, though. I genuinely thought I was helping people. The problem was that I wasn't examining myself, constantly seeking to purify my heart and refine my incentives. Any time aid does not inspire self-evaluation, the efforts are futile.

Truly helping someone always changes you, making you more self-aware.

There is no shame in helping people. The desire to help is a beautiful quality. Having a soft, patient heart is something to be very thankful for. However, I know from experience that many people who are actively seeking to change the lives of others are in it, whether they know it or not, out of arrogance.

I ask myself two questions whenever I'm trying to determine my motivation for helping someone now:

1. Will I take it personally if the person I am attempting to help does not change? (For instance, if your drug-addicted friend continues to snort cocaine even after you swear you've influenced them otherwise, do you wear that failure as if it is yours?)

2. Will I take credit for people when they do change? (Let's say your drug-addicted friend really does quit cocaine after you come into their life. Do you attribute yourself as the sole reason behind their changed behavior?)

If I'm doing one or both of these things, odds are, I'm approaching "help" and "change" from a position of arrogance. At that point, I try to consider the root of that action: do I really love the person I want to help, or do I want to promote my own good will?

I have recently gone through a very traumatic and painful lesson in which I learned in the hardest way possible how wrong I was to try to save someone. I genuinely thought God was tag-teaming with me to save someone I really cared about, and that I was a necessary part of the equation.

Push came to shove and God showed me the truth: He didn't need me to do work in this person, and I was no longer allowed to be a part of the change. God needed to condition me to put aside my pride and accept this difficult truth: My participation is a privilege for me, not a necessary component to the process.

God has revealed to me how erroneous my own character is: how much I idolize control and how easily I grow angry when that control is stripped from me. The biggest lesson He has taught me, however, is the one I needed to hear most--and the one that has most destroyed my pride: not only am I not a necessary component in the process of His salvation, but I need salvation just as much as anyone else does. I'm so far from perfect, it's actually daunting.

I am reminded every day of 1 Timothy 1:15: “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.” It's me. I'm the worst one. I'm worse than all the people I am trying to save.

I am the one Jesus had to stoop the lowest to save, and yet He did it. For me.

Only now am I truly contributing and being changed in the process. I am praying fervently for the person I formerly tried so hard to save, and working on my heart to absolve my addiction to anger and my obsession with control--especially in regards to this situation.

This person held a sacred and vulnerable place in my heart, and they have broken it in a way I did not know it could be broken. I am anguished, but if my prayer is for God to break my heart for what breaks His, then I guess I'm in the right place.

Maybe brokenness is the best place to serve from.

Maybe God uses broken people because their cracks radiate with His presence, and there is room for Him. I've always believed that stained glass is the most beautiful of all glass, because in its broken and stained pieces, the sun shines through in the most remarkable and lovely of ways.

Make me stained glass, Lord Jesus. Break me, mold me, make me a work of art--and shine through me.

Dear all the saviors: Hear me. You can't save anybody. You need to be saved.

What did I do when I learned this?

I let go. I let go of the burdens I was carrying. I let go of the pride that set the stakes so high and screamed at me every time I failed. I have discovered that I am not responsible for anyone else's salvation. I am not the source of anyone else's salvation. I will not get credit for anyone else's salvation.

Feel powerless yet? Feel out of control? I did.

Control is an illusion. Since most people who have a salvation complex operate this way due to an underlying obsession with control, it's best to really kill that concept now. Control is not real. It is nothing but a mirage. The roof above your head could fall on top of you and kill you in five seconds. Your best friend could show up at your door and tell you that they hate you for no apparent reason and they want nothing to do with you.

Yes, we should treat people with respect and love, but micromanaging relationships under the pretense of a salvation complex, fueled by an idolatry of control, is unhealthy. Stop chasing the mirage, and just trust that the highway you're driving on is taking you to water.

God can save anyone. He can save you, and He can save the person you're trying to save. Everyone is savable, but not everyone wants to be saved. My favorite example of this is the parable of the sower. The sower can plant seeds, care for the plants while they grow, and harvest the end result.

Nowhere in that equation does it tell the sower that he is responsible for how the seed takes to the soil. It is not his fault if the seeds fall on rocky or weed-ridden soil. It is his responsibility to sow the seeds, and to tend to those that take.

What I'm trying to say here is that we cannot control the way someone receives aid--whether that be in the form of the Gospel, or in the form of general life advice.

We can only continue to cultivate those who actually receive what we say. We're not responsible for changing their hearts.

That’s God’s job, not ours.

I've learned not to wear a burden that was never meant for my shoulders. When I'm dealing with someone whose seed is not taking to the soil, I just pray. That's the best solution.

I still care deeply for the person who I thought I would get the chance to save. Now, though, I'm trusting God with their heart. I know that God is doing a work in them.

All I can do is pray for them. I want them to be happy, and I desperately want them to be saved. I just know I'm not the right warrior for the job, so I'm surrendering to the Greatest Warrior of All.

Take heart, and have courage. You are not responsible for saving anybody. Plant the seeds, till and harvest the seeds that take, and make sure your soil is fertile as can be. That's all you're responsible for. It is my greatest hope that, like I have, you too will find freedom in this mindset.

Soli Deo Gloria!