Always for You

2 Thessalonians 1:3

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;

 

Someone who is close to me associates with people of great faith and meets with them regularly to share and discuss matters of faith.  When he is with them, he says that he feels that his faith is so very little and he wonders what he’s doing with them.  He just isn’t where they are.  When he has voiced his feeling to the others, they have tried to console him by saying that everyone is at a different place in the journey.  But, I don’t think he feels consoled.  And I think that it isn’t so much because he desires the faith that they have, but because he doesn’t even really feel this desire.  His wife told him that, perhaps, the importance of his meeting with these people lies in what he can do for them.  He can listen and ask questions, which, often, is what other people need the most.  And, as he doesn’t want to tell tales of his own, he can be an even better listener.

 

This understanding is an essential one to me.  It’s the understanding that we don’t always do things that directly benefit ourselves.  Sometimes, we do what we do, we go where we go, we are where we are, for the benefit of others.  In our world, the most asked silent question seems to be, “What’s in it for me?”  People in our society are encouraged to “look out for number one”.  But, at what cost?  If we concentrate too much on ourselves, we are bound to either get caught in our faults and failings and pulled down into into the trap of self-doubt and self-loathing or get ensnared by our accomplishments and sucked into the insatiateness of pride and greed.  However, if we think of ourselves in service for others, our failings will lessen and our truly valuable accomplishments increase as we are safeguarded from the pitfalls of self-pity and arrogance – which may be one and the same.

 

Of course, this improvement isn’t one that can be measured, it may not even be recognized by others or even ourselves, but it is, nonetheless, real.  By employing our talents, gifts and strengths for the benefit of others, we are actually engaging in a healthy evaluation of our own self-worth.  By sympathizing with those who are faltering, we must recognize our own weaknesses and, in the act of helping the other through, learn forgiveness for them and for ourselves.  And, sometimes, we will find ourselves in the service of those who are held to be our superiors: bosses, parents, clients, or friends who are more advanced in a particular area then we are.  In these situations, in these relationships, we can find that the little things that we do, the things that even seem menial, are helpful and beneficial, for no amount of service, even service rendered in weakness, is too small. 

 

This is not a utilitarian understanding, an idea that a person’s worth lies solely in what that person can do for society.  Rather, it is a wholesome understanding, the knowledge that a person’s worth lies in the person’s entirety.  For, the severely disabled and utterly dependent daughter of a mother and father in their late 60s may only seem like a burden and a drain upon them.  But, if, say, the father felt like he would always be a spiritual turkey among eagles sometimes experiences a deep sense of love, tender caring and generosity of spirit when he is helping his daughter then, perhaps, she, as helpless and useless as she may seem, has brought him closer to divine charity and divine trust – closer to God – than any understanding of theology or attractive prayer of thanksgiving directly addressing God could do.  And the crippled young woman may wonder (and she has) “What’s in it for me?”  But, she is so filled with gratitude, bound to thank God for abounding love, that, perhaps, her faith will grow exceedingly.

Christina Chase