You know I learned very early on in my ministry that all of us need a helping hand from time to time. There may not be many times when we need someone to carry us. But we quite often need someone to help us out physically, and more often do we need someone to lean on spiritually. We really do need each other and so often those who extend their hand are helped as much or more then the one receiving it.
I well remember that there was a family in the first meeting that I served as pastor. The husband was an invalid, confined to a wheel chair following several strokes, the wife was practically blind, and they had a grown son living with them who was a diabetic and he had already had one leg amputated. If ever any family needed their pastor to visit they would be number one. And I did visit them regularly, but the amazing thing was, that I always came away from those visits feeling that I received as much help and encouragement as I was able to give because of their cheerful dispositions and their spiritual outlook on life. You nearly always listened to her recite a poem that she had memorized many years before. You left their home feeling ashamed for ever having been discouraged or depressed.
The apostle Paul told us that he learned that in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content. He had troubles most of us will never have to face, and he considered them all but a light affliction which endures for only a moment. For Paul and for the family that I visited, their light affliction which endures but for a moment will be made right when the Great Physician comes to open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.
In the meantime, we need to realize how important it is to extend our hand to one another. It may not be much but it is often enough to keep someone from falling. Jesus tells us that if we will ”give a drink unto one of these little ones just a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” I remember that Dublin Friends youth did this for many years at Canal Days every September. They may still be doing it.
We all need each other. Paul tells us that God will ”comfort us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Paul explains just how God does comfort us. ” God who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.”
God sent another frail weak mortal to comfort Paul. We all have the opportunity to be a Titus. Let us extend a helping hand to each other, ”and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
I would like to end My Friendly Thoughts for today by inserting the 42nd Psalm, verses 1-7.
A Psalm of Comfort
As the hart longs for flowing streams,
So longs my soul for thee, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While men say to me continually, “Where
is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng, and led them in
procession to the house of God, with glad
shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude
keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why
are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God: for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
My soul is cast down within me, therefore I
remember thee from the land of Jordan and
of Hermon, and from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of thy
Cataracts; all they waves and they billows
Have gone over me.
Psalms 42: 1-7 (RSV)
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