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From: ptl@fluke.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian
Subject: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves
Message-ID: <6281@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 17-Oct-86 04:47:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.6281
Posted: Fri Oct 17 04:47:06 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 06:05:48 EDT
Sender: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP

Hi,							10/16/86

"God helps those who help themselves" is a saying I've always disliked,
only to find out it has much truth in it.  As a Christian I'm told to
turn everything over to God, then somehow He'll work in my life.  So I
say the words with all the meaning I can muster, and wait for God to act.
And wait, and wait.

Today I bottomed out --- fed up with trying to act Christian but not
feeling it in my heart, and not seeing it in my actions and words with family
and friends..  Tired of presenting my views of Christianity to
Christians and non-Christians alike who actually enjoy putting
others down more than they enjoy sharing their own thoughts.  And fed up with
those many Christians out there who never do more than look-in on the
newsgroup, or write email only to complain when their sensitivities have been
offended, very few words of support.  Tired of listening to pious Christian
words, mine and others, and the poisonous anti-God words.  Tired of
defending God's goodness when it is hard for me to see and believe in.
Fed up with myself for not being the person I think I'm supposed to be.
And mad at God for not lifting a hand to help.

So I plopped into my chair today and smoldered.  I read the newsgroups
only to find more junk, finished with that and smoldered even more.  Then
my best friend Bob dropped by.  He is at one of our other plants, and
very seldom makes it over here.  We talked.  He reminded me I used to
say "Say a prayer and go like hell"; an updated version of `pray as if
everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on you.'
Then he mentioned the phrase I dislike so much - "God helps those who
help themselves."  We talked about it.  He had a meeting to go to, so
I went back to the newsgroups, and found new articles, one by Kiki where she
made the same exact statement and spoke on the idea some.

The more I think about it, the more I realize Jesus didn't seek out
people to heal, they sought Him out.  There is even one instance where
two blind men called to Him and He walked right by them.  They ran after Him
trying to get His attention.  I can just picture them falling and bumping
into things.  They catch up to Him, and He asks them what they want.  You can
figure the rest of the story.  There's the woman who was hemoraging - she had
to go to Him.  Even the centurion and the parents of the girl who died had to
go to Jesus to ask Him to come to where His help was needed.  The man on the
stretcher had to have friends tear up the roof of a house to lower him
on the stretcher down to Jesus inside the house.

Then I remembered the place where Jesus says to `ask, seek and knock'.
I wonder why I have to act first, why can't He, He is God anyway.
What strikes me thru all this is something I already know, but wish was
easy to live, so I fight it - God wants me to know what I want, and to know
I can depend on Him to answer, provide and open the things I need in life.

God Bless,

Mike Andrews (PTL)