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Work or Handouts: How to Help Those in Need

Work or Handouts: How to Help Those in Need

In my 2018 blog, The Benefits of Work, I described how work benefits people in multiple ways. Today, I want to explore a different aspect of work — and the lack thereof.

In Eden, before sin — a perfect world — God gave Adam and Eve work to do. Human beings are created in God’s image, and God is a creator. In the likeness of God, we have a built-in desire to be industrious, to engage in meaningful activity, and to use our energy, creativity, and ingenuity to build, construct, devise, make, or otherwise produce something of value, consequence, or purpose.

Such creativity is built into our being, and when we do engage in meaningful activity, whether it be work for the sake of making money to provide for one’s family, or gardening, because one loves flower, or drawing, painting, writing, playing music, caring for animals, being a homemaker, or any of a myriad of other industrious activities, we experience growth and a greater sense of wellbeing, meaning, and purpose as human beings. Our sense of wellbeing, of usefulness, of confidence, and even joy all increase.

When we are active, industrious, and engaged in meaningful employment (not necessarily for pay), we are healthier, happier, and experience greater peace.

Conversely, idleness, a failure to engage one’s abilities in development or meaningful application, is damaging to one’s wellbeing. It undermines a person’s dignity, while increasing feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame, and worthlessness, which leads to pleasure-seeking and other acting-out behaviors in an attempt to alleviate the sense of inadequacy. As the old saying goes, idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

Doing nothing, refusing to engage in constructive activity, and not investing one’s energies and abilities into meaningful employment (when one is capable), degrades the human being. Understanding this, what action could people take if they wanted to demoralize others — to destroy other people’s dignity and undermine their God-given individuality? They could take away their usefulness, take away their meaningful employment, and create programs or systems that free the capable from useful labor. They could promote public policies designed to give money, food, clothing, housing, cell phones, cars, and a variety of other resources to otherwise capable people who choose not to work.

I want to be clear: I am not concerned about politics; I am concerned about people — about their health, wellbeing, and integrity.

Throughout time, many others have recognized what I’m saying here:

  • “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” — The apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:10
  • “If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.” — Richard Nixon, Republican, 37th President of the USA
  • “Working moms, and increasingly working dads, don’t want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.” — Madeleine Kunin, Democrat, Governor of Vermont and U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland
  • “The desperately poor may accept handouts, because they feel they have to. For those who consider themselves at least middle class, however, anything that smacks of a handout is not desired. Instead, they want their economic power back.” — Robert Shiller, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale
  • “At Year Up, our students — low income 18- to 24-year-olds — come to us having already faced substantial obstacles in life. They are not in search of a handout; what they want most of all is the ability to take ownership of their own futures.” Gerald Chertavian, founder and CEO of Year Up; has worked with urban youth for more than 25 years.

I have seen the destruction of wellbeing, the demoralization that occurs when people are given things that they could otherwise earn — whether it be from well-meaning parents, family, friends, church members, or society. When we receive handouts that we don’t believe we merit, we experience guilt, loss of esteem, a falling sense of worth, and often feel guilt and inadequacy. This leads to an unconscious need to alleviate the guilt with justification for the handout, contributing to either a sense of entitlement and identifying oneself as being downtrodden, mistreated, or wronged in the past and, thus, the handout is simply compensation and is deserved, or by experiencing physical or mental symptoms of illness that justifies the handout.

Let me be clear here as well: I am not saying that there are no people suffering from real physical and mental illness; there are, and they need our compassion and help. What I am saying is that when handouts are received by those who could otherwise provide for themselves, it causes in them a need to justify the handout, and this can take a variety of forms — either by seeing oneself as deserving, because of some perceived social injustice, or by experiencing some physical or mental problem.

A Case Study

It is a difficult thing for compassionate people to know where to draw the line between helping someone and withholding our help. Years ago I was asked to see a woman on the dialysis unit. She was 68 years old and was suffering from renal failure; she needed dialysis three times per week. I was being consulted because the nephrologist was concerned that the patient was depressed and had given up on living. She lay in bed and basically did nothing for herself and was regressing more each day.

When I went to evaluate her, it was difficult to enter her room, because it was filled with loving, concerned, and attentive family. But after my evaluation, I had her transferred to the psychiatric unit, primarily to remove her family from her.

Within the first 30 minutes of the patient being on the psychiatric unit, the nurse call-light illuminated, indicating that the patient needed help. I happened to still be in the unit, so I went into her room with the nurse. This sick lady, with quivering voice, said pitifully, “Will you put my glasses on my face?”

Now, any compassionate person, any caring person, any person with any degree of heart realizing that this woman is suffering from a terrible illness would instantly jump to her aid and put her glasses on her face, which is exactly what her family was doing. However, what you need to realize is that this woman had to reach over her glasses in order to push the nurse call-light. Therefore, I instructed the nurse not to put her glasses on her face and to stop doing anything for this lady; that she was actually capable of doing it for herself. By the end of the week, this woman was not only up out of bed, but she was also assisting in the unit cafeteria, setting and clearing the tables for meals, participating in groups, and keeping her room straightened up. She had gone from despondent and hopeless to smiling and hopeful. She had real disability, real sickness, real limitations, yet she still had the ability to engage in many meaningful activities. Her sense of wellbeing required her to continue to do for herself and others what she was legitimately capable of doing. Her family had her best interest at heart; they wanted only to help, yet doing for the patient what she could do for herself only infantilized her and accelerated her decline.

This holds true for all people. When we love other people, we want to provide for them that which restores them to the greatest level of functioning and wellbeing possible for their actual situation and condition. Thus, love often withholds help in order for the individual to maintain or develop their own abilities.

When the devil cannot get good-hearted people to choose evil, he seeks to use other means to cause harm. One strategy is to overwork good people with good projects to the point they burn out and are removed from office. But another strategy is to get good-hearted people to give to people who could otherwise provide for themselves and, thus, demoralize the recipient.

When the Bible speaks of taking care of the less fortunate, the widow, and the orphan, it is not speaking of making them helpless dependents of the state. It’s speaking of giving them opportunity for growth, for development of character, and for the exercising of their individuality and dignity as children of God.

When the widows, Naomi and Ruth, needed food, how did they get their need met? They gleaned for it. It was free food, yet they had to go out and work the field in order to get it. This is the biblical method, providing opportunity and resources, yet still requiring the recipient to do as much for themselves in the process as they are capable of doing.

I encourage you, with hearts of love, to seek to help others, but not to give them simply what they say they want — give them handouts — but to give each person what will help them develop their greatest potential in God’s kingdom. This is hard, because it requires we actually get to know people, but maybe that has been God’s plan all along.

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Antony N. – Hobart, Australia

 

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Thank you and may God continue to bless you as you share with others the intricacies of how we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made”. I must share that you have opened a whole new world to me, and I have found tremendous healing through what you have shared in two of your books, “Could It Be This Simple?” and “The God Shaped Brain.” I praise God for what you shared, what I have learned, and how I have grown and healed! My prayer is that My Precious Jesus will be seen by others in the way I live, act, talk, etc. and they may be encouraged to know He is truly a GREAT God of LOVE, desiring that no one should perish! God Bless you in your continued endeavors to present Him as He really is!

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I am blown away by the truth that you present. God’s Design Law makes so much sense! You have validated my impression that, if God is love, He would not kill those who don’t want to know him. If God gives us choice, then how can He destroy us if our choice is not to follow him. Thank you for opening my eyes and heart to the pure love of God seen through Jesus. The love I now have for Jesus is deeper and free from condemnation. My heart has been opened to love others as Jesus loves me. May God continue to bless your God-given insight into His word and your ministry. The truth has set me free!

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Testimony 67

I was introduced to Come And Reason by a friend of my mother-in-law, who gave me several CD’s of Dr. Jennings. The clarity of the message and recognition that God’s is a God of love was so clear, advancing beyond Dr. Maxwell’s message. However, grappled with Maxwell saying God used emergency measures for the fallen world. Now after several years of being a regular listener of the Come And Reasoning bible study class and attending Jennings’ meetings in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, things are becoming clearer for me. Design law versus imposed law has added so much to my personal understanding of theology. This message has really impacted my work in counseling so many people miserable because they are searching for and trusting human governments to create order and peace or believing in a God who says love Me or I will kill you. I am grateful that I have an alternative view to offer my clients that makes sense. I teach a bible study class on a semi-regular basis and I value the materials that Come And Reason so freely offers to aid me in presenting this vital message. Thank you for continuing to provide advancement in our very limited understanding of a Infinite God that is rational and believable.

Dr. Roger D, Arlington, TX, USA

 

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R. Noseworthy, Newfoundland, Canada

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I was invited over a friend’s house to see the “God and Your Brain” seminar today. I became [a christian] 36 years ago at the age of 19, but have struggled with the concept of God taking His ‘pound of flesh’ out on His Son to be appeased. Wow. Your seminar has been an incredible revelation and breath of reason and fresh air! I have your book, “The God Shaped Brain,” and it is SO eye opening. Finally, after 36 years enlightenment has come! Praise the Good Lord! What can I say, but that the Real Gospel is truly “Good News!” Thank you for your efforts in giving the Gospel a clear sound!

Paul C.,  Springfield, MA, USA

 

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Two years ago I stumbled upon your book, “Could It Be This Simple,” and then found “The God-Shaped Brain” videos on YouTube, your bible study class, and the ‘Come And Reason’ mobile app. I shared your book with a friend and after nine months of showing love, patience, and kindness this person has been changed by the love of God, too. The same love that healed me, I now express to other women in tangible ways, such as to a Baptist woman with high anxiety and childhood trauma. She was extremely happy and relieved when I shared about the so-called “judgment of God” and burning in hell. She had no desire to serve a God that was so harsh. I have repeated the phrase dozens of times to her. “What we believe has power over us, but we have power over what we believe…”

This message that you are sharing has changed my life. I will continue to serve other women and bring this message of God’s healing love to their lives by sharing your books, YouTube videos, and The Remedy Bible app. Keep up the good work. Don’t be discouraged. God is doing a mighty work in and through this ministry!

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It was very touching to hear the testimony of your class share how viewing God’s true character has changed their lives. My feelings are the same – there is so much freedom in knowing that God LOVES me – regardless of my… just, REGARDLESS! I’m still blown away by the true gospel, the fact that God is not ready to strike us when we fail. He is not arbitrary. He simply loves us and warns of the natural consequences because He can’t stand to see us suffer. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS GOD!!!

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The blessings of clarity and understanding you and your class inspire me to take from the word of God have impressed upon me so greatly the true, loving character of our Creator. I have found amazing freedom and joy through building a stronger, more intentional relationship with Him. What is new is that this is now a relationship built on love, reverence and respect rather than fear and obligation, and as such my eyes have been slammed OPEN as I am continually impressed by the manifestations of God’s true character in His provisions for fallen man.

T.E.H., Salt Lake City, UT, USA

 

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E.W.

 

Testimony 47

I can’t even begin to thank you and your ministry enough for introducing me to the Truth about a loving and merciful God! I have my daughter and her in-laws to thank for sharing with me “The God-Shaped Brain” as well as your website. I listen to the Bible study class lessons on my daily walk. May God continue to bless your thirst-quenching ministry!

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