Somehow, I've developed a reputation of being helpful. Many people think highly of my ability and they think good of me in that they feel like they can expect me to do good. These people aren't usually wrong; I am a generally capable and habitually helpful person. The problem is that there are too many people who think this way about me. There are too many people who think of me when they need to ask someone for help.
I thought about listing some of the people I help regularly, but I don't want to embarrass them, and I don't want to toot my own horn too much, either. Nor do I want to discourage those I care for from continuing to ask for my help. I don't even want to dissuade other people from feeling like they can ask me for help. The only reason there are "too many" people who turn to me for help is that there is too little of me to answer them.
I am only one man, and I only have some much time and energy. Yes, I could use my time and energy more efficiently, and I'm taking steps to learn how to do that. In the meantime, there is only so much I can do. I will admit to wasting time on myself despite wishing that I could do more for others, and I recognise the contradiction in that. I struggle against my own wishes and the wishes of others. I want to help people, and I enjoy doing so, but. . .
I don't want to spend all of my working hours helping others, and I don't want to spend all of my time working. I am selfish. At times, I just want to watch Youtube or play games. I justify this by claiming that it's important to find balance and that a little bit of recreation is just as vital, spiritually and emotionally, as work is.
I also don't want to be taken advantage of. I don't think that's healthy for me or for the people who are taking advantage of me. And I don't want to feel like people are taking advantage of me or that everyone just wants a piece of me. That's not healthy either. I don't want to view every acquaintance of mine as a predator trying to snatch up a portion of my time and talent to consume on their needs and wants. I'm not a servant. I don't want people to think they can just ask me to help them and I will.
And yet, I do want people to feel like they can ask me for help. I want to be there for them. I want to be useful. I want to help.
I suppose that my problem is that I'm selfish. I want to be free to take all the time I want to do the things I want to do, and it annoys me that people keep asking me to cut into my downtime to help them. Yet, at the same time, I want to help others, at least partly because that helps me maintain my sense of self-worth. I feel good when I help others, and that good feeling is a large part of the reason I habitually do it.
But another part of the reason I habitually help others is because it is literally a habit. When people ask me for help, my default response is to say yes, not because I'm a good person, but just because that's my usual response. I feel like I'm "supposed" to help others and that I "have to" do the things I'm supposed to do. I've grown tired of giving service. It has started to feel like a habit and a chore.
I've lost the spark of service, and I need to reignite it. Just as it's not healthy for me to give up all of my free time in service to others because I'm "supposed" to, it's also not healthy for me to keep all of my free time to myself. But there I go, being selfish again, only thinking of what would be "healthy" for me. While my own emotional health is important, I also should consider the needs of others, and I should help others when I can, whether that contributes to my health or not.
I need to find some kind of balance. I need to learn how to do as much good as I can without burning out and becoming bitter. I need to learn how to get my needed rest and recreation in without wasting too much time. I need to learn how God wants me to spend my time and how much of my time He expects me to spend serving others.
Because I'm am a servant. I'm God's servant, if no one else's, and He wants me to serve others. It is, I believe, a large part of why I'm here on Earth. God wants me to serve. But in order to serve others without becoming angry or bitter, I need to find the perfect balance between serving others and serving myself.
1 comment:
I think when you are asked to serve, it is ok to consider relative importance. Are you being asked to fill a need or a want? How important? Especially balanced against what you must give. Are you being to asked to sacrifice a need or a want? And are they doing their healthy part? What are their options if you don't do as asked?
If a person makes a doctor appointment for 3 weeks in the future, checks around and arranges a ride, but at the last minute their driver gets sick, if you can help, you should. If they make the appointment for 3 weeks in the future and do nothing until that day or the day before and then tell you that it's very important that they get there, I do not think it is necessarily good or wise to disrupt your life to get them there.
We are taught about the joy of service and something may be wrong with me, but I don't always see it. However serving is not just to make ourselves happy, either. It is to do what is right and sincerely help people. Sometimes we are helping and sometimes we are enabling. Not always easy to know and I know we are not supposed to judge, but we are supposed to use some judgement.
So often everything comes out to the same test. Study it out in your mind, prayerfully decide, listen for the spirit to oonfirm or contradict. I really need to get better at that!
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