Helpful Helping – Listening well is the key to make us more effective.
It’s been quite a few years since my kids were small, but at one time I had two very energetic little boys and a baby girl all under the age of 5. They were fun and adorable, and I delighted to be with them most all the time, but I still remember dreading the question that so often came as I began a project in the kitchen, “Can we help? We want to help!”
Everyone likes help, right? When we have help it makes our lives easier, we get done faster, and it usually makes the job more fun. After all, help lightens our load…or at least it should. There’s just one problem…sometimes my kids weren’t actually helpful!
They weren’t mischievous or even ill-intentioned…quite the opposite actually! They were sweet, and their intentions were good, but often their enthusiasm for helping overcame their capacity for listening and following instructions. During one baking project I remember turning my back for a split second to help one child crack an egg, while another child proudly announced, “I’m adding some more flour, Momma. That will make them extra yummy!” My kids were so focused on doing something AMAZING, that they didn’t take time to ask what was needed and what would be most helpful.
I think this can be true of us as well, especially those of us who care deeply about children and families and desire to see real positive change. We need to be careful that our passion to serve doesn’t overcome our ability to listen well to those we are serving. It’s easy to look at a problem from the outside and assume we know how best to fix it, but if we haven’t taken time to listen first, we may not actually be helpful!
As individuals and churches engage in the vital work of serving foster, adoptive, and kinship children and families, as well as the professionals who support them, we must approach one another with a spirit of humility. That means listening well, assuming the best, and seeking to understand each person’s perspective before we act. If our passion to serve leads us to solutions that do not actually meet the needs at hand, we may end up trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Our efforts, though well-intentioned, can become frustrating, irrelevant, or even burdensome to those we hope to help. True service begins not with doing, but with listening. When we let the needs of others, not our assumptions, guide our response, we love well, and that is when our help becomes truly helpful.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest but each of you to the interest of the others.” Philippians 2:3-4
Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be a part of what you are doing to love and care for those impacted by foster care in our community! We know you care deeply about children and families. You know everyone involved intimately and you see every angle of every situation. Lord, please help us to seek you earnestly as we continue to serve. May we seek your wisdom and guidance, may we love and listen well, may we truly seek the interest of others over our own agendas or self-promotion, and may we trust your timing. As we do this, I pray you will give us peace, patience and perseverance and that you will accomplish in and through us all that you desire! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
By Melissa Cargill, Chestnut Mountain Village Community Coordinator