Last post we talked about giving what we have when we come across someone in need.
This week, let’s look at how we can reach out to each other to help in the areas where we lack in caring for someone.
“But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'” Luke 10:30-34 (ESV)
Looking at the Samaritan’s compassionate response, we can see two phases of care for the wounded man:
First, the Samaritan noticed and responded to this man by walking toward him and using what he had to care for him then and there.
Then, when the Samaritan came to a point where he knew the man needed care beyond what he could give alone, he brought the man to someone who could help more.
Sometimes when we make the step to reach out and help someone, we fall into the dangerous trap of feeling like we need to do it all on our own. We start absorbing the lie that if we commit to helping someone, it’s weak to admit that we don’t have everything we need on our own to properly care for them.
But, notice how the Samaritan recognized when he needed to reach out to others to properly care for the man he had committed to helping.
The man needed a safe place to rest and begin to recover, and the Samaritan couldn’t provide that on hand on the side of the road.
So, he needed to join with someone else’s help to best take care of him.
But, he didn’t just give this man directions to the inn and send him on his way.
He put him on his own animal and brought him to the inn himself. He took him there to continue taking care of him.
He wasn’t giving up on him.
He wasn’t passing him off to be someone else’s problem.
In fact, he either stayed by the beaten man’s side until the next day or came back by morning. He simply needed what someone else could provide outside of himself for the sake of this man.
The Samaritan knew how to care for his immediate wounds. The innkeeper had the resources to give the man a shelter and a place to rest and recover.
Alone, this man would still have needs uncared for. He’d be sitting on the road bandaged, but still not in a proper place to continue to heal.
Thankfully, when the Samaritan took it upon himself to bring the man where he knew he could have the needs met that he couldn’t meet himself, that’s when the man was fully cared for.
This truth that we should reach out to others around us and come together to care for the hurting reminds me of the beautiful way the church is described as a body who works together.
By ourselves, we cannot be everything a person needs. We can try, but most of the time we are doing this person a disservice.
However, as a body of individual people coming together as one, we can all pitch in to help in our own ways.
Our family saw firsthand the body of Christ coming together for us in our move to Fremont just a few months ago.
Multiple people from our church in Ohio pitched in to help us pack up, load our moving truck, and most importantly cover us in prayer before we left.
Our family came together to help us make the drive to the middle of the country with our 2 boys and everything we owned.
And when we arrived, people in our current church had already been covering us, complete strangers whom they welcomed with open arms, in prayer.
When it came to the logistical, typically headache-invoking, details of moving, God had everything we needed taken care of through the people in His church.
One family with public service and social work background helped us immensely in figuring out health insurance for our entire family and dug through the complex details of transferring Ace’s extensive medical care to a new state and new hospital system.
Another couple of people in our church have the expertise of working in real estate and led us to the home we are living in now.
The morning we unloaded our moving truck, a group of men and their families were here to help us with the physical work of getting everything into the house where it needed to go.
Our fridge and pantry already had some food staples waiting for us when we arrived. And some delicious frozen meals were made by a few generous women from the church so that our family could easily eat meals while we still had every knife, plate, and pantry item packed up in various boxes scattered around the house.
There’s not one person who could’ve filled all of our needs when we made the move here.
But, when so many people from different backgrounds, with different expertise and abilities, gave out of their hearts and hands what God gifted them with, our family was well taken care of in our time of transitional needs.
When we all come together as the body of Christ like we are intended to, willing to bring how God has gifted us and give with willing, generous hearts, God uses us collectively to make a huge impact on someone’s needy situation.
The Samaritan was not afraid nor embarrassed to admit that he needed help caring for the beaten man he had taken compassion on and committed to helping.
As we have our eyes and hearts open for those in need on our own paths, let us remember to embrace the resources God’s placed right around us, too.
From one of His children to another,
Christi
Love this blog post!