"Cynicism" -- Say it Ten Times Fast

"What is the most Christ-like thing that I could do (or not do) in this situation?"

One of the reasons I started this blog was to get Christ-followers to begin to ask this kind of question to themselves regularly. Its answer may or may not fall in line with what you've picked up over the years. A corollary to the non-Scriptural statement "God helps those who help themselves" (see Romans 5:6, not Poor Richard's Almanack) may be the statement, "I will only help those who help themselves." Our response to seeing someone in need, sometimes not in so many words (I don't think we're honest with ourselves sometimes), may be like this:

"He made his own bed, now he should lie in it."
"I would just be enabling him."
"That situation is a direct result of his sin."
"He needs to learn the hard way."
"Nobody helped me when I was in that situation. I had to rely on myself." (Or more pompously, "I had to rely on God.")
"He should have known better."

Each of these statements is the product of selfishness and anger; not wanting to dispense something that we think we've never received.

While our "job" may, from time to time, include helping people to learn to do things for themselves, our primary task as Christ-followers is not to convict people of sin (see John 16:8 for starters) or to leave them in a situation that may be of their own making -- for instance, the traveler in Luke 10:30-37 should probably have taken along traveling companions, but that didn't prevent the Good Samaritan from helping him. Our privilege is to live in obedience to Christ in day-to-day life, to show people that we love them like Christ loves them, and to spread ("preach") the Word.

Obey the simple truths of the Word without over-analyzing them. As we get older, we don't necessarily get wiser -- we can actually begin to use our past experiences and their resulting lessons as crutches.

Never mistake cynicism for widsom.

Posted in: Christianity, Love, Servanthood, Wisdom