Help another and help yourself…

Heard an insightful statement the other day.

When you help dig someone out of a hole you find a place to bury your own problems.

Mel Johnston gave the counsel years ago, but it’s really good if your challenges seem great and your burdens seem heavy. Rather than always looking for help, try looking to help. This seems to be one of God’s intended purposes for the suffering we go through. Note the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians,

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer (2 Cor. 1:3-6)

Did you capture the phrase? So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves were comforted by God. The word affliction in that passage comes from the word pressure. It can also be translated anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble. Do those words describe your world? If so, Paul says, look to help another.

The advice sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. Perhaps you need to turn your gaze from inward to outward. Don’t just look at your own struggles; look to help someone else with theirs.

Who knows, you might discover that when you help dig someone out of a hole you find a place to bury your own problems.