If you lead with enthusiasm, you have plans, you have options, and you are excellent company. The thing you'll want to avoid is the room where nothing can be improved. John 11 has Jesus standing in exactly that room, with the power to end it, choosing not to end it yet.
Two Verses in the Shortest Sentence
Lazarus has been dead four days. Jesus arrives, and Mary comes out to meet him with the sentence she has clearly been holding for days: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:32).
Now, Jesus knows what's about to happen. He has already said Lazarus will rise. He is minutes away from calling a dead man out of a tomb in front of everyone.
And here is what he does. "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled" (John 11:33). Then the shortest verse in the Bible: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).
He had the fix in his pocket and he cried with her first.
John also records what the onlookers made of it: "See how he loved him!" (John 11:36). They didn't read the tears as weakness or as a delay. They read them as the evidence.
Grief Is Not a Delay
So sadness is not a stage to be got through on the way to the good part. The Son of God, holding the solution, sat in the bad part with the people who were in it.
That's worth having, because your reflex is to reframe. Somebody tells you something hard, and within about four seconds you've found the bright side, the funny angle, or the plan. It comes from a decent motive. You want them to feel better and you're good at making that happen.
What it costs is that people in real pain learn not to bring it to you, because it gets solved instead of heard.
Try this instead, and it will feel like doing nothing. When somebody tells you something heavy, say that it's heavy, and then stop talking. No plan, no silver lining, no story about the time this happened to you. Just stay there. That's what Jesus did in front of Mary and it's the whole practice.
The One You're Avoiding Is Your Own
The reframing habit points inward as well, and that's where it costs you.
There's usually something you have not sat with. A loss you moved past quickly. A relationship that ended and got replaced with a new project. A version of your life you stopped grieving because there was a better option available.
You are not required to go excavating. What's worth doing is noticing when the impulse to move fires, and staying put for one more minute than is comfortable.
Practically, that can be as small as sitting in a service without checking your phone or planning your afternoon. Or reading a psalm of lament all the way to the end without skipping ahead to a cheerful one. Fasting is worth a look here too, from something small, because it removes one of the exits and shows you what you reach for when the option is gone. Psalm 88 finishes in the dark and does not resolve. Read that one.
Following Through Is the Discipline
The other cost, and you already know it, is the pile of half-finished things.
Your faith will collect them too. The book you started, the group you joined in September, the practice that worked for three weeks. New is easy for you. It's the eleventh month of the same commitment that produces anything.
So finish one thing. One book of the Bible, in order, including the dull middle. One serving commitment for a full year. One friendship where you keep showing up after the novelty is gone. Tell somebody what you've committed to, as well, because an audience is the one thing that reliably keeps you in a room past the interesting part. The depth you're looking for is on the far side of the boring part, and there is no route around it.
Who Else Stayed in the Room
Personality systems came along thousands of years later, so scripture isn't assigning anybody a number. It does show you people who stayed when they'd rather have moved.
Jesus wept in front of a tomb he was about to open. Ruth stayed with a bitter mother-in-law when she had every reason to go home. Paul stayed with the Corinthians through a relationship that was mostly conflict. And the writer of Psalm 88 wrote the darkest poem in the book and did not add a hopeful ending.
Try These
Try these this month. When somebody tells you something heavy, name it as heavy and then say nothing else. Read Psalm 88 and let it end where it ends. Pick one commitment and carry it past the point where it stops being interesting. And the Head center covers 5, 6, and 7, which is worth reading if you've never thought of yourself as anxious, because that's the material this whole part of the map is made of.
He could have skipped to the miracle. He cried with her first, and then he called Lazarus out.