Help You Help Me

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Who can ever live completely alone? 

Few can. Perhaps no one can.

Who would want to live completely alone? Beyond the occasional hermit, almost no one. Even the most introverted and misanthropic person desires some company, some interaction with the rest of humanity.

We are built for community. We are designed to be among our fellows. We are rarely built for solitude.

We Need Each Other

It is trite to say that people need one another. It is a worn out cliche that has been used and abused to the point that many scarcely listen when it is said.

Yet the saying is trite and cliche because it is true. We need each other if only so that we will not be alone. We need the company of our fellows because without that company we will be alone.

If we wish not to be alone, we must be around people. There is no second option.

Whatever frustrations we may feel towards people, whatever irritations and annoyances we may express about people, the alternative to those frustrations, irritations, and annoyances, is solitude. Our choice in such matters is always simple: we can accept the frustrations, and accept the people who bring us such frustrations, or we can be alone.

If we wish not to be alone, we must be around people. There is no second option.

Whatever comforts we gain from people, whatever pleasures we take from them, we would do well to pause to appreciate. Such comforts we get only when people are near, and when those people leave they take their comforts and pleasures with them.

If we wish not to be alone, we must be around people. There is no second option.

We Need Community

Where there are people, there will be community. To need people is to need community. They are one and the same.

Yet community does not merely happen. Community arises because people share common interests, perhaps a common goal, in addition to a common geography. Our individual interests are a part of whatever community to which we belong, as are the interests of those around us. Whenever there is community, all our individual interests intersect and interact with each other; we cannot help but influence the interests of all those around us.

It follows that, even as we pursue our interests, those around us are pursuing theirs. As our happiness and contentment are reflective of our success in pursuing our interests, so too are the happiness of those around us reflective of their success in pursuing their interests. This is what we do; this is what all people do.

Which is more likely to bring us happiness and contentment--the happiness of those around us or the frustrations of those around us? Are we more likely to find peace when those around are at peace, or when those around us are in turmoil? 

It is intuitively obvious that when those around us are at peace we are more likely to find peace. When those around us are content we are able to find our own contentment. When those around us are conflicted, their conflicts are quite likely to invade our lives, and leave us conflicted as well.

The more people are able to pursue their interests, the greater their happiness, contentment, and inner peace will be. This too, is intuitively obvious.

For any community to be at peace, all who dwell within must be at peace, or able to get to a place of peace. In this regard, the health of the community is the health of those within, and the peace of the community is the peace of those within.

If we desire peace in our lives, we must hope for peace in the lives of those around us.

If I want peace, I must hope for peace for you.

Help You Help Me

If we want peace for ourselves, we must at the least hope for peace for those around us. We must hope, and we must pray, for that peace. If we do not hope, if we do not pray, we are not seeking our own peace and happiness.

Yet where there is hope there is also effort. While we are hoping and praying, we can also be doing. As we should hope and pray, it follows we should also do.

We need not merely passively hope for peace, either for our selves or for those around us. We can act, and work towards that peace, for ourselves and for those around us. We can--and therefore we should.

We can help those around us find peace, find happiness, find contentment.

Those around us can help us find peace, find happiness, find contentment.

If we truly desire happiness and contentment, if we truly want peace in our own lives, we are well advised to help those around us find that same happiness and contentment, even as we look for those around us to help us find these things ourselves.

The more we help each other, the more we are helped, and the more we are then able to help each other. By building others up, we ourselves are built up, and the entire community is made stronger.

It is trite and cliche to say these things, but it is trite and cliche because it these things are true. Because they are trite and cliche we know these things are true.

It is true to say that when I help you, I am myself helped. 

It is true to say that when I build you up, I am myself built up.

When I help you, I help me. I help you help me.

The Value Of Sparrows

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7

Five sparrows can be sold for two pennies. A cup of coffee at Starbuck's costs considerably more!

Yet we have in this verse a price for sparrows.  Having a price, we have a value for sparrows. Having this price we know the value of sparrows.

We know that sparrows have value.

Man Has Value

We know also that a man has a value far beyond that of sparrows--at least, that is the teaching. Would any seriously argue the point? Would any seriously deny that a man is truly worth more than many sparrows?

We know that sparrows have value. From this we know also that sparrows must be valued. Whatever the price placed upon a sparrow, or upon many sparrows, we know that sparrows are valued to at least that much.

What is the measure of a man in sparrows? That I do not know. In the verse above it does not say. It does not need to say. It says enough when it says the price of sparrows. It tells us that the simple sparrow has value. It tells us a man has the value of "many" sparrows. If a man can be said to be the equal of a sparrow, or of one hundred sparrows, that is a measure of a man. It is a measure of worth. It is a measure of value. As the simple sparrow is valued, so too must a man--and indeed all men--must be valued.

All Men Matter

All men are valued because sparrows have value.

All men matter because sparrows have value.

It is trite and even cliche to say that sparrows matter, and that men matter. Yet it is important to remember that sparrows matter, and that men matter, because there are few places a man may wander in the world and not be confronted with sparrows, or men. We can not easily avoid dealing with men.

The teaching is simple: as we cannot ignore men, we dare not ignore their value. We dare not discard any man, any woman. Men and women, simply by being men and women, have value and are valued; men and women, simply by being men and women, matter. 

We Exist, Therefore We Have Value

Each of us has value, not because we labor, not because we produce, not because we serve, but because we exist. Men, women, sparrows, and ultimately all creatures all have value on this basis alone. 

We exist, therefore we have value. Therefore, we are valued. Therefore, we matter.

Our labor, our produce, our service will add bits of value here and there, but take away all our labor, take away all our produce, take away all our service, and each of us still retains value. Take away all our labor, take away all our produce, take away all our service, and each of us is still valued. Take away all our labor, take away all our produce, take away all our service, and each of us still matters.

In all the world there is not a single man, nor a single woman, about whom this cannot be said. In all the world there is not a single man, nor a single woman, who is not worth many sparrows, who does not have the value of many sparrows. In all the world there is not a single man nor woman that is not therefore valued, or that does not matter. 

 

It is trite and it is cliche to say this, but it is because it is trite and cliche to say this that we know this must be true. 

All of us are valued. All of us are valuable. All of us matter. There can be no doubting of this. There can be no questioning of this. We know this is absolutely true all the time.

We know this because even sparrows have value.