Wise Words To A Hero Wantabe:

Along with everything else that went on in my life last week, a number of people whose actions are landing them in serious trouble crossed my path.

When that happens, I’m inclined to jump in and help.

My friend Wes says not to.

My desire to be a rescuer is just a natural inclination. It may include a modicum of Christian compassion, or a bit of fellow-feeling for our common humanity, or the memory of how people have helped me when I got myself in trouble.

I think, more than anything else, my training as a Boy Scout when I was young plays a huge part in my wanting to rescue people from the troubles they have gotten themselves into.

I want people to think well of me as trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind…

But Friday after breakfast with my friend Wes, he pointed out that I have a Super Hero image of my own self imprinted on my own mind.

I want to be the brave guy running out of the burning building clutching the wide-eyed child who’d been playing with matches in the closet. I want to be the hero dragging the idiot who skated on thin ice back to safety. I want to carry the bikini girl in my strong, tanned, muscular arms out of the undertow when she swam in over her head.

Yes, I play the role of Superman, Spiderman and Batman combined in my own mental movies.

I cast myself as a Super Hero.

I want to be needed.

Envied.

Admired.

Worshiped…

Whoa There Nelly!

Worshiped?

Yes, that is the right word. I want to play the role of God.

Notice that virtually none of my motivations to help have anything to do with the people in trouble. It’s all about me. It’s all about self aggrandizement.

In other words my desire to be a hero and to help troubled people can be rooted in black ugly sin masquerading as a petty virtue.

Not a pretty picture.

Not only that, but my desire to be The Helper, The Rescuer, The Super Hero gets in the way of what God is doing in the troubled person’s life. He loves them more than I do and I can short-circuit God’s correction and cure for that person.

Wes explained the dynamics of how this works in two ways:

“John, you need to back off. Interference with the natural consequences of a person’s socially irresponsible behavior confirms that person in a course of self destruction. Actions have consequences. When you negate those consequences, the person continues deeper and deeper in the behavior that generated those consequences in the first place. Until that person’s actions result in a level of personal discomfort, no change will occur; she will continue to do more and more of the same thing because that’s in her comfort zone and that’s the easiest, most familiar thing to do. She’ll have no reason to change”.

But I objected saying how much I want to help.

So Wes worded his wise words more succinctly:

“When He is correcting someone, don’t get between God’s paddle and the sinner’s ass”.