If you remember last week I uploaded a little story/monologue called I saw jes...someone. It was based around the sort of ideas and excuses that I sometimes have used to not help someone out who I saw in need. One of the things that really struck me, after I actually finished writing it, was how many excuses I didn't include that I also use.
The one that struck me most was "I'm too busy to help them." It's seams so strange and so against the grain of the bible where we regularly see people dropping everything to help others. I would love to attach this to culture or something but in reality it's not. Back in biblical times people worked pretty much all day everyday [bar Sunday of course] and yet the bible doesn't seam to view this as being too busy to help.
What this really says about my motives and priorities is that going off to do my job, to get home, to meet friends Is more important to me than helping someone. There maybe good reason for this, after all what if one of my friends was about to commit suicide, it wouldn't be surprising for me to priorities them over a strange who I don't know what their situation was.
However, as you may be surprised to hear my friends don't actually try to commit suicide everyday.
Another thing I can say about work is that sometimes I have to get to work quickly for my next lesson which really does start very soon and so end up passing the same homeless people again and again. I know these people will be there and yet I am always rushing past. If I simply woke up and set of 10 minutes earlier then I would have at least 10 minutes to spend with this person! What could I do with that time!
So I want to open it to you, What good and what bad reason do we think of for why we don't help other people? [and what do these "reason" tell us about our priorities and motiviations in life.]
AND
most importantly how can we overcome these problems?
