Inefficiency and Leadership

My week has been very busy. And more inefficient than normal. The inefficiency is due to a young 26 year old man I have been visiting who is dying of cancer. He has two boys ages 8 and 6 and is a single dad - raising these two kids with the help of his mom and dad for half of every week. I have known Brian since he was just a little older than his oldest son. Eventually he would make it into my Youth Group and cause all kinds of problems there! He was a bit of a rebel and would get into some trouble. Throughout his short life I have gotten calls from him or his mom when things were falling apart - substance issues, relationship issues, issues with the law, issues with his landlord. And starting about a year ago - issues with a deadly disease. He began to turn his life around. He made the right decisions, he stopped doing stuff he should have never been doing in the first place, but the disease continued to advance.

Right now the disease is getting the best of Brian. He can't get out of bed - he's lost about 70 pounds. He doesn't have much longer. I have tried to be an example of love and grace for all these years. I have invested a lot of time trying to help. As of yesterday - Brian still wasn't ready to make any kind of faith commitment to God. In a way I can understand. He doesn't see the justice in all of it. Honestly, neither do I.

All I know is that I will continue to spend time and energy on his behalf because his soul and his legacy depend on it. I will continue to make the 30 minute drive each way to visit, I will continue to cry out in prayer, I will continue spending days off to bring food and firewood, I will continue to call attorneys begging for pro-bono work to get his papers in order, I will continue to open the scriptures to him when I see him. And with a task-oriented personality like mine, and with a business-oriented mindset, this kind of work feels inefficient, like I'm not getting my list checked off for the day. When it comes to the soul of another human being - I'll choose inefficiency any day.