Passionate To Help Others?
What is your passion toward helping others? Your desire, excitement, fervor, enthusiasm to reach people in practical and spiritual ways with your giftings?
If you have been a follower of Jesus for a while I am sure you too have a God-given passion/desire that stirs your heart to action. But what about those who are restrained at home due to personal circumstances?
Consider Jane, an 83-year woman, who for more than five years has been caregiver for her husband who has dementia. She has a college background. When she was younger she participated in ministry outreaches. Today she prays regularly for her nation. What else can she do? She asks that in a letter to a stranger. I don’t know her personally, so I can only make some general suggestions.
Listen to her cry as she writes: “I hear much about fulfilling your destiny. I feel there is so much I could do. But I am home. I feel isolated. I need direction.”
What would you tell her? What helpful advice would you offer? Suggest she write her memoirs as a legacy? Invite a few people over to share their hobbies of knitting or painting? Use the phone to pray for individuals who have deep prayer concerns? Would you even volunteer to let her have a few hours away from her caregiving chores to be a regular Jane?
Could you be the answer to one of her heart-felt desires? Could you let her share her experience, wisdom, and vision with you? Of course, you don’t know her.
But look around your neighborhood. Your church. Your workplace. There are a lot of Janes out there waiting for you to contact and help. We can’t let our elder generation feel left-out, isolated, neglected, unwanted. To linger in their loneliness.
What are you passionate about? What has the Lord put in your heart that is burning? I pray some of us will reach out to those who feel they have no purpose or destiny. Many seniors have no idea when or where or how they can share their knowledge and experience. And some wonder who would listen.
Let’s go be Christ’s hands extended! Let’s exhibit the passion of our Savior. Let’s make a difference, one life at a time.
Prayer: Dear Father, thank you for those who have gone before us to as forerunners, giving us footprints of faith to follow. Help us find ways to connect with those a generation or so behind us. To help them feel useful and in the process may we benefit from their experiences with You and others. Lord, we pray for Your Kingdom to come, Your will be done on earth, in our lives, today as it is in heaven. May we be faithful to use the passion and talents You have put in us to bless and help others. We ask in the name of our Savior, Jesus, Amen.
Scriptures: Encourage one another (I Thess.5:11). Give preference to one another in honor (Romans 15:14). Minister to one another with your gifts (I Peter 4:9). Wash each other’s feet (John 13:14). Contribute to the needs of the saints (Romans 12:13). Be compassionate toward one another (Ephesians 4:32). Pray for one another (James 5:16).
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