Sunday, September 12, 2010
Drawing the Line
Where do you draw the line about helping others, especially when you feel strongly that they are creating their own problems. (For example, people using money to buy drugs or otherwise be irresponsible.) Our Christian obligation to help includes meeting short-term needs and working for long-term improvement. How do we tell when meeting short-term needs works against long-term improvement? There are lots of different charitable activities that might, in some situations, facilitate the very behaviors we wish to discourage. What is the Christian thing to do?
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Motivation, motivation, motivation. So very important!!! I think that we Christians sometimes like to throw money at the problems and little else. This tends to be true if the problem is someone hungry or even in some churches if attendance is low. It should be done out of Love but I'm afraid that we draw the line way before we really consider that. After all, I have given "a bunch" and THESE PEOPLE don't appreceiate it at all. Pls don't expect me to get personally involved in their lives, or really even talk to them, to find out why there is a need. That may cost me more than money. And you know that I do have MY LIFE to live, so take a little of my money and good luck. I'm comfortable and God is so proud of me!!!!! Only if I am operating from Love, can I begin to see the line and where to draw it, and I feel that it would be in a much different place than we thought.
ReplyDeleteIt seems we can clearly see some cases where we should help (someone's house burns down), and cases where we should help by not helping (money to go buy illegal drugs). Our problem is when we don't know enough to know whether it will help or hurt. Somebody shows up with a sad story. Or someone we helped before seems to be back in the same fix we got them out of the last time. What do we do? The best answer I have is that we just do the best we can -- by and large we can't predict the future and we don't know what's in someone else's heart. But we shouldn't refrain from helping from our own selfishness, and we shouldn't provide help out of our own conceit. If we are motivated by trying to do what is right and best for the recipient, that's really all we can do.
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