Hello stranger, might I help you?

I won't give you a book review/report today... I suppose.

Let's just jump in. So last Thursday I was involved in a God Belongs in My City walk through Chilliwack. It was pretty powerful... groups of people just walked through the town praying over it. I can't wait to see what will come of it. The groups met up in central park afterwards and while I was there I felt like there was someone to my right that I should go help. There wasn't. So that was weird. But then I think God nudged me to go in this thought direction.. and I suppose in the bigger picture, what our city has potential for.

My original feeling was that there might be someone to my right that needed help carrying something (picture a person carrying way too many grocery bags), and before I even looked I knew that if there was someone I would go over to the sidewalk and help them carry their groceries. Now since there was nobody there it occurred to me that even if there was someone and I offered my help... they might not even take it. So then I came up with these three categorized thoughts of responses one might get:

1) "The No Thank-You ... now go away" Answer
This is the answer that you get and you just can't understand it. You offer someone help that is carrying way too many things (like five tvs) and yet they refuse and in fact get annoyed and angry that you would even dare to offer your help. The more you try and help the angrier they get. It's confusing to you since you were never trying to offend them or imply that they couldn't do it on their own but that it would simply be easier on them if they let someone help them.


2) "The Ask me again and I'll say yes" Answer
This is the answer that seems most typical. You offer your help to someone and our society is so often on automatic mode to decline outside help, because it may be untrustworthy, that they just refuse help before even considering how helpful it may actually be. So the initial response to your offer of help is declined but if you look at the person you can tell that they are now calculating in their brain how they will move the whale they just purchased into their car. Ask again if they need help... they will let you help them now because they re-evaluated their situation and know they need you more than they fully realized before.

3) "The thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou" Answer
This is the answer that makes you feel like a million bucks because the person is so grateful for your help. They are in the perfect desperate situation and they may not have been exactly waiting for you to offer your help but it comes at just the right moment that they jump at the opportunity. The recipient of your offer of help knows without a doubt that they can longer push their broken down car up the steep Promontory road, your presence alone rejuvenates them that they are not alone and the fact that you are willing to help fills them with gratitude and relief.

Now, with all these answers/responses broken down you may notice that this can be applied to different forms of help you may offer someone, particularly to me the thought stood out that some people are not ready to receive help or healing in their broken lives because they are simply not in that place just yet. That place where they have exhausted all other options and are just needing someone to offer them a step out of their despair but have no idea how to ask for it. Friends, I encourage you today to keep offering your help out in no matter what form it may look like (carrying groceries, offering encouragement, praying for another, paying for the persons meal behind you in the drive through, letting someone in a rush go ahead of you in a lineup, etc.) You never know what effect you can have on another person's life by simply offering them some help... the response is up to them, all you have to do is offer.