When Help Doesn't Help

It has occurred to me that a few of the things that humans have designed to help us have also become metaphors for things that hold us back.

For example, Band-Aids are great for sealing small, temporary wounds, particularly the ones that will heal on their own, but a "Band-Aid Solution" is a method for putting off the actual healing of a serious problem. Band-Aids are temporary. They are used to prevent small, self-solving problems from becoming worse. But when we apply a Band-Aid or a Band-Aid Solution to a serious problem that will not solve itself, we are basically fooling ourselves into pretending that we don't have to deal with the problem at all. When used in this way, Band-Aids actually prevent healing rather than facilitating it.

Similarly, a crutch is a tool to help a person with some mobility-related disability regain some measure of mobility. If your leg is in a cast and you can't put weight on it, you will likely use a crutch or crutches to retain your ability to walk. Crutches, too, are often temporary. There are some people who use crutches to help them counter permanent disabilities, whereas others use wheelchairs instead, but for many people who have used crutches, the use of those crutches was meant to be temporary, and they often are. However, metaphorical crutches are much less helpful. Metaphorically speaking, crutches are tools that people use to cover a weakness instead of overcoming it. Metaphorical crutches symbolize an over-reliance on something that prevents a person from having to face a problem on their own. Just as real crutches, when over-used, can lead to muscle atrophy, metaphorical crutches can reduce a person's ability to face the problems that the crutches help them avoid.

Used improperly, neither Band-Aids nor crutches help a person achieve actual healing or growth. These things instead let us justify ignoring our problems in hopes that they'll go away. Instead, this often lets our problems grow worse. Getting help when we don't need it and getting less help than we need are both dangerous. Thankfully the main source of all our help knows very well exactly how much help we need and when we need it. As we rely on God for the help we need (or think we need), He can provide us with real solutions, not Band-Aid solutions, and He can wisely revoke our crutches when He knows we no longer need them. With God's help, we can heal and grow properly, but with self-administered help and the help we get from other humans, we should be careful not to rely too much on Band-Aids or crutches.