“Hi Jake, it’s _______, I was just calling because we keep hearing these scary noises in our house. Sometimes it’s like something’s running down the hallway, other times, it’s a bunch of thumps. Once, it was this really scary whine-yell. We don’t know what to do about it, so I figured we’d have you come pray about it and see what happens. Call me back.”

Beep.

I deleted the message and shook my head. I wasn’t bothered. Nothing made me angry. I couldn’t figure out if this person was serious or not. I had heard through the grapevine that they expected me to come cast something out of their house and at that point put my friends on strict, no contact terms until I knew how I’d respond. My initial response to the request was, “Why me?”

“Jake! We miss you! Did you hear the news? Yes! I proposed two weeks ago, it’s great! Things are awesome, we’ve been together for five years now, lived together a little more than four of them, we know it’s right. We were wondering, do you want to do the ceremony?”

“Jake, I haven’t told my family yet. I know they’ll freak out when I do, so I figured I’d get some more tests done first and see how bad it is, but here’s the deal. I have cancer. Like I said, we don’t know how extensive it is yet, but we’re hopeful and Mandy and I thought that maybe you’d be willing to pray for me? We all know that the Big Guy likes you more than the rest of us, so maybe you’d get somewhere if you asked Him. We’re not convinced He’d listen to us.”

At this point, my friend fell forward started to cry. A large tumor showed up in her most recent mammogram. The biopsy results had come in that day and a tearful phone call had me meeting my friend and her husband at a coffee shop near my office. The tumor was malignant and her doctor couldn’t confidently tell my friends what the next six months looked like. I was honored that they wanted me to pray for her, but at the same time, a little worried that they might be looking at me in the wrong light.

I’m the first Christian my Dad’s family has seen in a long time. I also happen to be the premier Christ-follower among some of my oldest and dearest friends. That said, they ask me to be there during some of the more significant and even a few of the stranger events of their lives. Some expect me to cast out demons while others seem to believe that if I ask, I shall receive, even if I’m making requests on their behalves.

I’m alright with most of this.

I love that my friends and family think of my faith whenever a challenge confronts them. Most of the time it’s because I’m the only Christian they know. Others think that after a year of seminary, I’m ready to take on the devil, so why not their problems? It makes me laugh just a little though because their expectations land on God and they don’t entirely know it. My plan when this happens is to help them understand that I don’t need to be part of the equation, that the Big Guy doesn’t like me more, perhaps they’ll begin to go directly to Him.

Maybe the answers to their own prayers will give them faith and they won’t have to rely on mine. Maybe they’ll place their lives in Jesus’ hands, all because they had some interesting, basically misguided expectation. Either way, they expect Him to save their lives, show up at their weddings and kill the scary hall demons that turn their nights into something terrifying. They just call me to get to Him.”

I expect this to change someday.