You know what I’m wondering today? I’m wondering when to help. If someone needs help, and you have the power to help them, should you?
Depends what they need of course. How much of a sacrifice would it be to me? Would helping them affect my family or others around me, and would the benefit outweigh the impact on someone else?
But, I mean, sometimes someone is going through something difficult, and God is going to grow them through that experience. Still, couldn’t He do the same growing in them through some other experience? We all need to learn perseverance and endurance in life, but it seems like life provides enough mandatory chances for perseverance, and maybe we don’t have to live through the optional ones.
It makes a difference if it’s a mess they’ve gotten into themselves. Consequences from our actions are the best teachers in life.
I know I have to factor out my opinion of their situation. Sometimes I think I’d be able to get through something a little better than that person is, and I have to keep myself from judging them. Difficult is different for everyone, ya know?
Maybe what seems like an opportunity for someone else’s growth is really an opportunity for me. Will I do what I can, everything I can, to alleviate someone else’s discomfort, pain, or misery? After all, who am I to decide that this pain will do my friend good? Yes, it’s a chance for them to grow and develop perseverance which produces character which produces hope which will not disappoint (Romans 5). But perhaps that’s not why God sent the situation.
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Postscript: By the end of the day, the situation had changed, and there was no longer anything I could do for my friend. It wasn’t because I hadn’t acted ~ I couldn’t have helped before the evening came, and by then the situation had changed. And you have no idea how much I wanted to, when I no longer could. Lesson learned. I look forward to my next opportunity!
~ “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity.” ~
Philippians 4:10
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~ “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially those of the household of faith.” ~
Light Expectations 