Monday, October 15, 2018

Isaiah 41:6 -- On Helping in a Better Way

"They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage."
Isaiah 41:6


I like this little slice of people helping each other... out of context it seems ideal.  In this particular case though, many of the commentaries mention that these people were supporting each other in idolatry.  The verse is contrasted later in the chapter with another verse: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness" (verse 10).  Together with the other verse the idea becomes that God can help us a lot better than people can, especially if those people are encouraging us to do evil.

Although God encourages us to love and help each other, and that is a totally good thing in general, it doesn't work really well when we are supporting each other in sin.  In order to get quality help, we have to be rooted in the Lord... similar to the idea in Psalms 121:1-2, emphasizing that help comes from the Lord, or 2 Nephi 4:34 / D&C 1:19 with the idea of trusting God instead of trusting in "the arm of flesh."

This doesn't mean of course that people aren't cool, or that we shouldn't support each other.  We totally should.  We can take this verse and move forward with the idea, as long as we keep our priorities straight and the things that we are encouraging and supporting are of God.  Let's examine our actions and our advice, making sure we never encourage sin and being very careful, today and always, that we are rooted in the Lord.  Let's not lead each other astray or make things worse for our neighbors when we should be supporting them.

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