Reflections on Helping Vs. Enabling

 

            I’ve been reflecting on a certain word: need. It’s not my “star word” for the year (see previous blog entry), but it’s a word that keeps coming up this week. As in, lots of people need help. And, more is needed if we’re going to break down systems that keep people impoverished or disenfranchised. And, what does this person really need when they’re asking me for help? I’m thinking about a question that I plan to ask as many people this year as possible: “What do you need from your church?”

            And, a bigger question that is just weighing on my heart this week: am I helping to actually meet a need or am I enabling someone? That’s a hard question, because on the one hand people do need help and what is the church except to be the body of Christ who loves her neighbor as we love ourselves? When the disciples told Jesus people were hungry, Jesus said, “You feed them” (Matthew 14:16). The early church in Acts had a community fund so that no one was ever in need. James 2 reads: ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷ So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

            But when am I meeting needs and when am I enabling? I must confess this as someone who has been in the church my entire life: sometimes, it’s very hard to tell the difference between helping and enabling.

            I read something this week that seemed to help (at least in my mind). The writer talked about helping vs. enabling and they wrote, “God wants us to be ready and willing to help whoever crosses our path, but He also expects us to be wise with our resources. The difference between helping and enabling all comes down to having the strength to say no when we find ourselves doing things they should be doing for themselves.” I found that so incredibly helpful as I try to make a distinction in my own mind. When we help someone, we are helping with something the person cannot do on their own. When we enable, we do something for someone that teaches them nothing.

            It’s the old adage about fishing. When you help someone, you’re either giving them a fish or teaching them to fish for themselves.

            Of course, then the other voice in my brain says this: “Is it your job to judge what someone can or can’t do for themselves?” And the answer, I think, is yes. And no. It’s not my job to judge. It is my job to be a good steward of the resources God puts at my disposal, be those resources time or material things. This can be a challenge for a person of faith or even a whole community of faith because we want to help people. We want people to thrive and speaking at least from experience, it’s painful to watch someone struggle. We are all about loving without conditions! But can the best answer to a request for help sometimes be “no”? Can the “no” be the most helpful thing we say?

            Parents would say yes, of course, sometimes “no” is the most helpful thing we can say. When my parents told me no, I couldn’t do something, it wasn’t because they didn’t want me to enjoy my life or thrive. Most of the time, it was exactly because they wanted me to thrive and enjoy my life that I heard the word “no.” Sometimes, a person of faith can say no to someone who asks for help because saying yes is not what will be most helpful or fruitful for that person.

            Which brings me back to this: how do you really tell the difference?

            Sometimes, you just have to trust your gut, because often, our guts are the Holy Spirit’s nudges. If your gut is telling you something is wrong or not ultimately helpful, God’s Spirit might be telling you to take a step back and really think about it. We also have to understand that we cannot meet every need that comes our way. We just cannot. We are single individuals who have a finite number of resources. If we try to meet every need that comes our way, we will burn ourselves out and fall into despair. We need to remember there are others out there – including whole organizations – that have more resources to help persons in need than we do. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is point someone to those other resources. As a church, we also have to remember the gift of community. If it’s up to one person to meet the needs that come up, the church is not doing any favors for the helper or the one needing the help. The gift of community is such that we can ask one another to help us listen for how God is or isn’t calling us to act. Pick another person or two that can be your partner in this. You don’t have to share confidential info with them (in fact, you should not share confidential info with them!), but you can give them enough details to help you listen for how God’s Spirit is whispering to you. The community is there; let them support you in the helping.

            Ultimately, it comes down to this: love one another because God first loved us. Love doesn’t always mean “yes.” Love doesn’t always mean “no.” Love doesn’t always mean help. Love means help when you can and as you can. Love means do the best you can with what you’ve been given. Love means letting God lead you in the decision making. And sometimes, we will make mistakes. Hopefully, we learn from them. But keep on loving. Keep on trying to be a good steward of the resources God gives you.

            And above all, remember that God’s grace is enough to cover you, too. 

 

Want more? This is the article I read from a church in SC: https://newspring.cc/articles/how-do-i-know-if-im-helping-or-enabling. I found the article really helpful.