Learning to be Helpful

On the surface, it may seem easy to be helpful.  It may not seem like something that needs to be learned.  However, people are born selfish and hedonistic.  It didn't take long for my toddler to learn words like mine!  To be truly helpful, we must learn to overcome our own selfishness for the good of others.  The Oxford Dictionary defines helpfulness as, "the quality of giving or being ready to give help," and "usefulness."  It defines help as, "make it easier for (someone) to do something by offering one's services or resources."  So to be truly helpful, one must be ready to offer their services or resources in order to be useful and make it easier for the other person.  

First, you must be ready.  This can be difficult for me.  I like to have a plan and to stick to that plan.  I can be ready to help if I know weeks in advance, but I have a more difficult time being ready to help when it is last-minute notice.  In order to be ready to help you need to have a calendar or schedule that has open that you can offer your availability.  You do not want to be so overbooked that you are never able to help.  You also must know your limits.  You don't want to offer so much help that you are overbooked, stressed out, and unable to take care of your own family.  Being ready involves not only the mental preparation but also the tools necessary for the job.  

You must not only be ready, but you must offer your tools and services to help in areas that you are already familiar with and have the tools to accomplish that task.  I usually assume that someone who needs help or does not understand how to accomplish a task probably does not have the tools necessary to accomplish that task.  For example, if someone needs help with cake baking and/or decorating, they may not have the pans to bake the cake or the tools necessary to decorate a cake.  Offering to help them would involve not only my time and skill but also the tools that are needed.  Sometimes this is an opportunity to teach someone else how to do what needs to be done.  It may also involve teaching them how to use the tools that are needed.  I enjoy cooking and baking.  This makes it easy for me to offer help in these areas.  Sometimes that means making food for people, and other times it means teaching people how to make the food.  While I do not find joy in sickness or injury, I do enjoy the opportunity to help those in need with a meal to help them as they recover.  However, you do not always have to help with food.  People may need help with moving things, sewing, planning, or help around their house or yard.  Use the skills you have to help others who have a need.

The ultimate goal of helpfulness is to make things easier for another person.  This means following their schedule and their needs, sometimes at the expense of your own.  Being truly helpful takes self-sacrifice.  While you should have some space open in your calendar to be helpful, needs do not always fall neatly into those spaces.  Sometimes we need to be uncomfortable and rearrange our own schedule in order to make things easier for someone else.  It is not truly helpful if you are only doing things on your time, in your way, at your convenience.  True helpfulness calls for denying yourself and your own plans in order to meet the needs of someone else.  A great example of this is when someone is ill.  You do not get to choose when this happens or when they will need your help.  However, as a wife and mother, I need to be ready to help my family whenever they are ill.  I may have to cancel plans or rearrange my schedule in order to ensure that I am there to care for them.  There have been several occasions that I have had to cancel my own plans in order to care for a sick child.  Even if you do not have children you can still be of help to someone who is ill.  I know when I am sick I appreciate anyone who helps with food preparation or house cleaning.

Wives were created to be helpers for their husbands.  There is a specific person a wife should be helping all the time.  However, all Christians should seek to help others, especially those in the Church.  Hebrews 13:16 reminds us, "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."  Seek out ways to help others.  Make your schedule open and available, but be willing to be flexible in a way that meets the needs of others.