God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

    One sunny morning, a few years back in my general contracting days, I hopped into my rusty pickup truck and turned the key in the ignition. "Bang" The passenger door closed with a thud. A wide smile from my cousin/helper, Pete, greeted my tired face. I put the gear stick in drive and sped off. On the road I made a sloppy sign of the cross and whispered a five second prayer.

    "I am glad you are making an effort to pray, but do you know what you really are?" Pete asked with a grin on his face.

    "What am I?" I replied with a smug smile.

    "You are Lukewarm. You believe in God, but you don't live your life as if it matters. I shook my head with a resounding "No!" But inside my heart I knew he was right. I had been living my life as if God and His truth hadn't matter. 

    Now, a few years later, I can proudly say that I am actively living out my Baptismal calling. I am by far no saint, just a constant sinner seeking repentance. But my heart trembles as I lookout into the world and see so many people struggling with Lukewarmness just as I once did. Lukewarmness is frankly a disease in our culture today. The catechism of  the Catholic Church defines lukewarmnes as: "hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity." A Christian must not be Lukewarm. The reason being is simple. As I once heard a catholic speaker put it, "An encounter of Jesus Christ (love) can not be contained, it must be shared."

  That quote is so true and brings up my next point. And my next point is "God helps those who help themselves." You probably have heard this quote at some point in your life. The quote is attributed to Benjamin Franklin who made it largely popular by inserting it in his Poor Richard's Almanack. For some reason many people misinterpret the quote and claim it is not true. Unfortunately they are wrong! They are just examining it the wrong way.

    How do we help ourselves? In true essence we help ourselves by doing what God wills for us. To know what God wills for us we must one, be open to Him. And two, we must be trying to reach out to Him. God's will for us is not just a spiritual thing. He wills us to keep living physically. In order to keep living we must eat, and keep ourselves from being killed by predators. God gives us the breath each day to live, but we physically have to go out each day to make money so we can feed and shelter ourselves. God initiates the blessing, we respond by doing what is necessary, and He blesses us again.

    Some people can get tripped up on the help God gives us when we help ourselves. The help doesn't always mean a steak dinner, the perfect retirement, or a mystical vision. The help is what God finds fit to aid our bodies and souls at the current moment. 

    Many people physically help themselves in our culture, but they spiritually neglect their souls. But the risk of  helping just one aspect of our humanity is that if we neglect one part of ourselves we in turn neglect the other. 

    The biggest danger of not "helping yourself" is that you will become lukewarm. Patrick Madrid once said "God won't guide your foot steps if you don't move your feet." In my antidote at the beginning of this chapter I wasn't willing to move my spiritual feet. Are you, my dear reader, willing to move your feet?