p. 3 | Help for Oneself in Helping Others

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1916

Help for Oneself in Helping Others

A WORLDLY business man recently remarked that his wife, who had been a chronic invalid for years, had greatly improved in health since she had taken a class to teach in Sunday school and had begun to take a personal and active interest in the welfare of the members of her class. This effect was more than psychological. It is a law of spiritual life that the one who seeks to help others is himself doubly blessed. The good we seek to do returns with blessings on our own heads. This is the promise:—

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.” Isa. 58: 6-9.

There are thousands of men and women nursing mental and physical ills, who, if they could but once look outside of themselves and obtain a view of the needs of a suffering world and reach out to help some one less fortunate than themselves, would reap the fruit of such Christian service in rich spiritual and physical blessing, which heaven would pour upon them.

We are in constant danger of becoming too selfish and too self-centered. We voice our grief in the words of the sad lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” Lam. 1: 12. But even this prophet of sorrow, as he turned his eyes away from the afflictions of himself and his people, could exclaim, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” Lam. 3: 22-25.

When we reach that place in our experience where we shall serve God because it is right to serve him; when, regardless of our feeling, we shall praise him because he is worthy of our praise; when we consider it a sin to express doubts and talk unbelief even though the clouds of darkness may threaten to submerge our souls,—then we shall see the mighty working of God in our experience; then will the Lord make true his word concerning us, and we shall see fulfilled the desires of our hearts in all needed spiritual and physical blessings.