Helping Hands

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,  when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, Go, and come back;  and tomorrow I will give it— when you have it with you.  Proverbs 3:27, 28

There are certain people, even among Christian brothers, who just need help and would contact me only when they really need help. Well, I am always ready to help them if it was within my capacity to do so. In fact, I have been doing my best to help people, firstly as a Christian, secondly as a slave of God, and thirdly as a human being. Well, my intention in helping people is with the view that they will also be blessed by God. I do not merely want to do a charity like any other "good" human being. Everything that I do must be with a purpose. The purpose is clear to me; it must mean something to God. If my helping hand is not contributing to God in fulfilling His plan in any way, my helping hand would just be futile. I should not be an instrument of the devil even in my so-called helping hands. 

These days, two brothers have been contacting me because they really need my help. In fact, I have been contacting these ones for shepherding and had spent my time and energy to shepherd them in the best possible way I could. Actually, they received my shepherding for their own benefit, professionally or for their personal need. I knew that as well. But my intention was to shepherd them that they may grow in life and be useful vessels to the Lord with the hope that they can even be built into the Body life. Anyhow they just need my help for their own benefits. At some point, I lost contact with them to the point that one of them even did not bother to receive my call or reply to my text messages for weeks in a row altogether. Nevertheless, I still am open to them should they need anything from me.

One of them recently contacted me to proofread the book he is writing on his profession "Memory Mastery." I did my best to help him as a brother. In fact, he is also the one the Lord saved, a local brother, through my gospel preaching. The Lord has been working in him and he can become quite famous in his field. I have also been praying with him that he grows in life, that his family members be saved, and that he would be a pillar to bear the Lord's testimony.  I believe the Lord will do this, even through all the helping hands I have been rendering. In fact, I have been praying for him to be fully established in the faith and be a strong pillar among the local Haryanvi for the Lord's testimony.

Another brother is an elder brother who has been deeply rooted in a systematized Christianity. Once I invited him to join the Lord's table meeting in Gurugram and sent another brother to pick him up, but he convinced the brother I sent to join his own denominational meeting instead. When I spoke strongly about the truth concerning the church, using all Bible references, truth-wise he had nothing to counter it, but his stand on his own ground he would not budge even an inch. But of late, he called me as he needed help to dispose of his used-car whose life is about to expire. I did my best to simply help him as a brother. I doubt he would not have contacted me at all if not for his need for my help to sell his car. Anyway, I still feel I should respect his feeling and help him in whatever way I could.

Perhaps, I also need to learn just to simply help people without any expectation in return. Though I never wanted anything in return physically, I always wanted that whomever I help would draw near to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be blessed by His eternal help. My help should be ushering them to receive the divine help, the help of all helps.

Amen to the proverbs, "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, Go, and come back; and tomorrow I will give it— when you have it with you."