Does God help those who help themselves?

I have been slow to embrace a return to my pre-pandemic life. The pandemic brought many challenges AND some opportunities - I'm trying to learn from all of it. Combine this resistance to a return to "normal" with my health issues and I end up in my current situation - long lines and strangers fascinate me more than ever! I love when I can get out and mingle.

Standing in a long line at Target I began an exchange with a gentleman who referred to me as "young lady." Whatever his intent, I choose to hear "young" and simply feel grateful. But here is the gist of his comment, "Young lady, I do not know what is wrong with your generation. We have to stand here and wait in this long line because you people do not want to work anymore. No one wants to work. In my day, this would not have happened because we were not afraid of hard work. Folks have forgotten that God helps those who help themselves. No wonder the world is going to hell!"

The line was long and I had all the time in the world so I asked, "What was it like in your day?"

He presented his case and I believe him. He was a hard worker. He helped himself! As a result, to his way of thinking, God then blessed him. But my question is this: Did he experience a blessed life because he was a hard worker, or might something else make more sense?

Then I asked, "When would you say that God helped you the most?"

He stood still. He considered the question. He replied, "I think God has given me the strength to carry on."

"Because you worked so hard?" I asked.

"Well, I think God gave me the strength because I asked for it and He was gracious to me." He answered with humility and sincerity.

"So, maybe, God helped you because of who God is and not so much because you worked hard? Could that be it? Or, could it be that God gave you strength when you knew you did not have enough power on your own to do what had to get done?"

"Well, you might be onto something." And, I am sorry to say, the lovely young clerk who worked SO HARD to check out the previous Target shoppers interrupted our moment of connection with the mundane task of check out.

Does God give more aid and comfort to those who work hard and are self-reliant than he does "those people"? Another dear man who I loved used to say to me, "Teresa, God helps those who help themselves." I was young then and he was a holy man; I assumed that he learned this through the scriptures. Later, I checked. I do NOT know where he learned this - but it was not in the Bible. No where in the Bible does it say, "God helps those who help themselves." In fact, it doesn't even make sense, does it? Why would God burden himself with helping me with things that I can do quite competently for myself? And...isn't that advice sounding an awful lot like our understanding of codependency?

I know God is amazing but he's got a big job. Is he bad at time management? Surely the war in Ukraine, political unrest around the globe, the recent pandemic, economic upheaval, the addiction epidemic, droughts and famines, civil wars and sexual abuse, physical abuse, and sex trafficking...isn't he present in situations where no human can do enough to avert tragedy without divine intervention? Is he really going to say, "Hey, Yemen, I gotta go over to Virginia and help Teresa out because she has been doing such a good job of helping herself that I'm going to just take a bit of the load off her." I don't think so. Now, please, you know I am being cheeky. God is not only amazing but mysterious and I really do not know how he works.

But I do think many of us believe that it is important to work hard and then harder, do more, do better, achieve, strive and succeed. And, if I may be blunt, don't most people feel judgmental towards people they perceive as not working hard at self-improvement? Don't we kind of believe that God helps those who help themselves? We don't SAY this, but don't we somewhere deep, deep inside feel this? Furthermore, don't we believe that if we are not spurring ourselves on to more achievement that something bad will befall us? Are we afraid that if we ever jump off the treadmill of continuous self-improvement that we might never get up off the sofa, end up binge watching the Kardashians make a bit of a mess of their lives while eating bottomless bowls of rocky road ice cream?

For those who care about such things, the scriptures paint a picture of God who loves to give good gifts to his children (James), invites us to rest (Matthew 28), sometimes even makes us take a nap (Psalm 23), cleans us up when we have been messy (Psalm 51), helps the underdog (David versus Goliath, David versus Saul), provides for the marginalized (Hagar and her boy), uses anyone he chooses (Rahab the working girl, Gideon the scaredy cat, Moses the murderer and those 12 hapless disciples). It seems more likely that the scriptures support this set of facts: Self-help is a myth. We can no more help ourselves in our hour of greatest need than any of God's people of the past. We NEED God, we NEED others. We are terrible at self-help.

I would dare to say that God often waits to help us until we are ready to ask for his help. Maybe the true lucky ducks (read the beatitudes in the gospel of Matthew) are those of us who know how much help we truly need and cry out to God to save us as an act of faith.

It is important to examine our beliefs and challenge them. When we don't do so, we accidentally weaponize our beliefs and turn them into judgments against others. The scriptures teach that God is working over the long haul of history to move us toward his kingdom coming - a world that is just and merciful and compassionate and empathetic. Any belief that somehow makes it easier for us to look down our noses at others is indeed something we might want to ask God to help us change.