Helping Folks

There is something that I presented in our annual department head meeting that, when shared later in private conversations, seemed to resonate. Perhaps, they were only being kind, but those with whom I shared told me it was helpful. Having a mind blank of anything else to blog, I decided to rehearse it here. Although it was originally packaged specifically for folks serving in ministry in the church, it seems applicable to anyone who engages in trying to help folks whatever the venue might be. Of perhaps any other endeavor, ministry is the most difficult to gauge its effectiveness. The temptation is to use quantitative metrics: How many? How large? How often? How far? Those metrics may work for a business, but not so much for ministry. Because of this, one can become discouraged trying to help folks. I have found that there is a digressing disappointment of seeking to help folks and not seeing the anticipated results. In the first-person expression of any who would experience it, the digression is this: 1. “I am not helping people.” Despite my intentions, efforts, and desire, I am not really being effective, making a difference, accomplishing anything. 2. “People do not want to be helped.” This perception permeates and then solidifies as it appears people are not responding to, listening to, cooperating with, or appreciating my attempts to be helpful. 3. “People cannot be helped.” At first the thought is “if people don’t want help, they can’t be helped.” Then, I begin to believe that folks can’t be helped because their needs are just too great. I see the depravity and dilemma of folks, how messed up their lives are, what Gordian knots their sins have tied into their existence, and, from human perspective, they simply cannot be helped. 4. “I no longer want to help.” This last perception in the digression is really the worst and the most paralyzing. By “I no longer want to help,” I don’t mean I no longer want to help people, but that I no longer want to go through this thing of trying to help people only to be disappointed. It becomes too despairing, too painful, too frustrating, too exacting. All that may seem melancholically morose, but it is a reality. I probably need to wait on next week’s space to answer each of those respectively and individually, but for now, feeling for those who find themselves somewhere on this spectrum, I submit a general response: The Apostle Paul said, “Let us not grow weary in well-doing.” I often read that at appropriate moments and then query in an exaggerated tone, “Now, why in the world would Paul write that?” There is but one answer: Because we get weary in well doing. There has never been a farmer, prior to today’s age of air-conditioned, computer-driven, robot-loaded equipment, who has not become weary plowing and planting and weeding. Not, if he was really plowing, planting, weeding, etc., and, especially in the context of his experience of recent droughts, storms, and attacks of pests. Paul follows with why we should not let weariness win, “for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.” We shall reap! We have something to do with the plowing and planting; but, we cannot bring about that which will be reaped. There will be a harvest, but, it will be God that brings it about. And, only He can. Since autumn, I have noticed nearby fields recently prepped and plowed by farmers. Yet, here it is winter, though an uncommonly mild one. Thing is, not one of those farmers who have done all that work expect a harvest right now. It’s the wrong season. Yet, the harvest, when it comes, will be the ultimate result of their efforts in a season when nothing was growing, a season of no inspiring green, only old dull, discouraging browns and grays. Weariness must not win; not with a promised harvest coming. We usually have plucked the promise above out of Scripture as a quick prescription to ingest. And, that is fine. We rarely, however, note the following verse: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (Gal 6:10). “Therefore,” in conclusion, keep trying to help folks. Start with those right there in your church and work your way out from there. You ARE helping folks! Weariness must not win!

Helping Folks

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