Picture yourself in a hospital waiting for someone to heal or get better. Now, take that situation and compound it with a most beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the outside seems to call your name evermore as time passes. Your heart longs to be in the sunshine, but your mind and conscience tells you to stay inside with your loved one. Choices are hard and life will throw you these decisions, and they should be simple enough to make. Throwing support at those whom you are connected to not only makes them feel better, but fulfills your obligation to be there for those who need you.
However, choices like those above are not so simply made. As people, quite often we are bogged down in what we want for ourselves and what we must do to please ourselves. Sometimes, we don’t even realize that we do it. How many times have you promised someone to show up at one of their events in order to secure yourself a day off to do what you want? Many times we fall into a pit where we believe that our personal lives should be run like our professional lives and we get into the habit of making deals just to ensure that we can pursue our own personal pleasures. This cycle however does not remain one of support when we believe that we must always get something out of those who we do for.
How then do we rise above this monotonous cycle of give and take and just learn to be giving like Jesus? Well, it certainly is not easy or else both you and I would be doing it all the time. However, it can be done because time is a currency in which we can trade. We can lend our support to those sick in our lives and not expect anything out of them. When we are in an hour of need, we would expect the same, if not better treatment. For Jesus teaches us to love with a clear purpose, and help those who cannot take care of themselves in the moment. When we open our hearts and expectations to embracing Jesus by letting him erase our selfishness, then we can finally realize what we have been missing. Each of our lives is not meant to be concealed only within the confines of each of our hands, but we are meant to share our time and abilities with those who can use them and benefit from them.