“Of course I am obligated, by compassion and a common humanity, to help others. But this does not mean I should do for them what they ought to do for themselves.” (ODAT, 29 January)
I’m obligated also by morality, by the fact this is God’s
will, and the fact that my survival—dependent as it is on doing God’s will—is
dependent on helping others.
I have learned not to solve people’s problems.
The same goes the other way round.
I do not ask other people to solve my problems.
When an apparent problem arises, my job is to gather the
facts, assess the situation, produce a picture, analyse the picture, identify
the issues, and identify the best solutions I can, all the while asking God for
direction.
If still in doubt, I can present a brief summary of the
above to another person, who can correct me or take me further.
But I do not dump the raw data of a situation, higgledy-piggledy, on someone else’s lap for them to unpick it for me.