Helping part 3
Its actually kind of amazing to me how often we end up hurting instead of helping. Its like that old saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." And I'm not getting into the whole "hell issue" today. I'm just saying... you have to be careful. Because sometimes you might have those good intentions. You might think something is broken, and you might want to fix it. But if you don't understand the situation you can easily do more damage. And let me say this: Just because something isn't the way YOU think it should be... that doesn't mean its broken. Things always look different from the outside than from the inside. And here's a completely innocent example that I hope will illustrate my point: I'm of the opinion that salad is the food that my food eats. I don't like green stuff (except Mt. Dew). So to me, when someone loads up on veggies, or when they say they're having salad, like, as a meal... that doesn't make much sense. To me. But that's ok. What YOU do doesn't have to make sense to ME. It only has to make sense to YOU. I don't have to make you believe what I believe. And I don't have to agree with what you believe. Because, believe it or not, we're different people. So if I was to try to force my views on you, in the interest of "helping" you... what I would really be doing is hurting you. But that's what I see. A lot. People trying to make people exactly like them. It won't work though. God doesn't want clones. He celebrates individuality. Even when He conformed us to the image of His Son He wasn't making little Jesus robots. He was simply shining the light of the world so that we could see Him, and ourselves, clearly. So that we could stop seeing Him as a distant, angry taskmaster who is always out to get us (thanks, religion, for that view), and we could see Him as our loving heavenly Father. So we could stop seeing ourselves as dirty, rotten sinners who aren't worthy of love (again, thanks, religion), and see ourselves as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Remember when Jesus said we're supposed to do the works He did and GREATER works (John 14:12)? Because He doesn't want us to try to walk in His foot steps. He wants to make new foot steps with our feet. He doesn't want us to try to be like Him. He wants to be Himself in us, and through us, and as us. And for me that means He takes a writer and starts to write Jesus books. For you it might mean He takes a dancer, or a musician, or whatever, and uses that talent for His glory. Basically, you being you but doing what you do... in love. With love. For love. I'm trying to say, loving people... while you let them be who they are... is really the only way you can truly help people. Trying to make them conform to what you think doesn't help. It hurts. Trying to control people doesn't help. It hurts. We have to let people be who they are. Because they WILL be who they are whether we try to control them or not. When we try to control them we just frustrate them, and ourselves, and make a mess of things. To get back to my example: Just because I don't eat green stuff doesn't mean you can't. If you want to... go for it. Do you. Be you. And I'll just go ahead and love you anyway. Let me end with the verse I was planning to use this whole Rant series: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John 3:17).