Dr. Albert Schweitzer is reported to have said, “Many have discovered helping others to be the most enduring therapy, for it’s the burdens you help another to bear that make your own seem light.”
This thought ties in with what Paul told us, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” If we will only look outside ourselves and see who we can help, we will achieve a double advantage. While we are helping others, we find that our own troubles suddenly seem lighter. Go, therefore and find someone worse off and help him. It is the best possible therapy for our problems, according to Dr. Schweitzer.
When we feel sorry for ourselves, we are thinking only of ourselves. King Saul was acting like a child when he said, “There is none of you that is sorry for me.” As king he could have found many in Israel to help, instead of thinking about his wounded pride and his obsession with hunting David. Far too many are worrying about their feelings when there are others crying out for help. But we may not hear their cries for help because we are lamenting our own situation.
Jesus had compassion for the multitudes. He put their interests before his own. When he had not eaten for 40 days, he refused to perform a miracle to provide for his own needs; yet when the crowds had been with him for only three days, he was concerned that they might become faint on the way home without food. “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with me three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far.”
Just as Jesus gave the needs of others higher priority than his own needs, so should we. Paul gives us good advice, “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him. For Christ did not please himself…”
Paul made an elaborate analogy about the body and how each part is important. This is so “…that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”
God made the body with a sympathetic nerve so that if one part of the body is hurting, the whole body suffers. Now we are the body of Christ. If we can only acquire this kind of a sympathetic nerve for each other, then we will leap to the aid of one who is hurting, and in the process, we will find that our own hurts are minimized.
So the best way to heal our hurts is to look outside ourselves. Let us remember Paul’s words commenting on the words of the Lord Jesus, “I have showed you all things how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Robert J. Lloyd
