Yet Another Year of Choices
By Barbara Dahlgren
Most of us like to be in control. We would like to have more self-control and, if we’re totally honest, we’d like to control others and every situation. In our desire for control, we sometimes leave God out of the picture. God is the One we should want to be in control. Yet most of us prefer to manipulate others into doing what we think is best. Unfortunately, what we think is best for others and what God thinks is best may be totally different.
There is nothing wrong with helping people when appropriate. We don’t want to turn a blind eye to suffering or develop a “go and be filled” attitude when we haven’t given a needed drink of water or crust of bread. (James 1:16) The Bible encourages us to be concerned about the poor, the elderly, the fatherless, the widowed, and those less fortunate. But there is a difference between helping those who can’t help themselves and helping those who refuse to help themselves or make changes that would enable them to lead better lives.
We must determine when needs are legitimate. It’s one thing to give a starving person a meal, it’s quite another to continually loan money to a spendthrift or gambler, get a drug user/seller out of jail, or let a deadbeat relative crash on your couch for a year or more. Yes, I know people are weak and can appear helpless, but sometimes our desire to help others causes us to intervene when perhaps we shouldn’t. It’s natural to want to alleviate another’s dire circumstances, but in doing so, we may be circumventing the work God is doing in a person’s life.
God uses difficulties to draw people closer to Him and teach principles such as “what you sow, you reap.” (Galatians 6:7) When we step in and continually rescue people, we may be blocking them from receiving certain blessings from God and learning life lessons needed for physical, emotional, and spiritual maturity.
God sets an example for us. We all know we are pardoned from all our sins (past, present, future) – the deliberate and accidental ones. And while it’s true God has taken away the ultimate penalty for sin (death), God does not always take away the residual consequences. In fact, He rarely takes away the consequences for our actions. God loves us unconditionally, but He usually allows a circumstance to take its course. If He didn’t, we would never learn any life lessons.
Consider this… In our zeal to help others, could we sometimes circumvent the lessons God has built into a system so people will not habitually repeat the same mistakes? There is a difference in forgiving someone and continually bailing them out of situations. God always forgives; He doesn’t always bail out.
Do we really believe God can take care of a situation or do we feel He always needs our help? We need to let God be in control. God can do it. We don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t always have to intervene, and we don’t need to react or immediately try to fix every situation. Maybe we can help more by listening, smiling, encouraging, and pointing them to God instead of getting sucked into their situation. When we are the ones doing it all, we are usually very proud of ourselves. Even if we give God the credit, a little part of us says, “WOW! Look how God used me in that situation.”
If we prayerfully turn our concerns over to God, He can do things we cannot. God can solve problems better than us and God knows what’s best for each person. Perhaps we should learn to trust God more than we trust ourselves.
One final thought…
Sometimes we need to just get out of the way and let God do His thing.
