“God loves to help him who strives to help himself.” ~ Aeschylus
Selfish. Self-serving. Greedy. These are all states of mind that we are told we must avoid. And for good reason because they keep us from being able to serve others as we ought. However, there are times that we judge ourselves falsely. We might think that we are being selfish or self-serving because we strive to take care of our needs.
There is nothing wrong with that as long as we continue to help others as well. We do have legitimate needs. We do need to take care of ourselves. After all, if we don’t, we will be in no shape or frame of mind to help others. In order to do the best for others, we need to be up to snuff ourselves.
There is an old saying, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” Perhaps that was derived from Aeschylus’ saying presented to us today. “God loves to help him who strives to help himself.” Yes, God looks upon us and watches what we do. When we strive to help ourselves, God is there giving us the graces that we need to succeed.
God will not force us to change. He will not force us to help ourselves. But He will definitely stand by our side and give us the aid that we need when we decide to help ourselves.
Don’t let some archaic notion that it is wrong to help ourselves stop you from doing good for yourself today. In doing what you need to do in order to improve, you are positioning yourself to help your brothers and sisters more effectively. That certainly pleases God.
FAITH ACTION: Put the same effort into helping yourself that you put into helping others.