Helping others before you help yourself can do more harm than good.

Helping others before you help yourself can do more harm than good.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged: and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank out of your own eye, and then you will clearly see to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:1-5

For these are a few of the many words Jesus told his disciples when he was on top of the mountain beyond the Jordan. He made it aware that as his followers we should practice what we preach. We should mean what we say and say what we mean.

            All a man has is their word so when it is corrupted, it makes it harder for others to trust and depend on you. Sometimes we can find ourselves juggling a lot of things at once, whether it be work, school, children, social life, that side hustle you want to do or even extracurricular activities; Managing it all and wearing many hats can cause us to lose sight of ourselves to eventually finding yourself trying to keep sane during chaos. In these moments, even though it may hurt, we need to learn to say no and stick to the boundaries we’ve created. When we help others before we help our self, we aren’t helping to the full compacity we are able to. Short term it may be beneficial to help but in the long run you’re causing more harm than good.

            On one hand, Finding time for self- care, self-improvement and self-love is important for us to Love one another the way God love’s us. If we don’t love ourselves, how do you expect to give love to others? You’re only depleting your energy, constantly pouring but nothing is being received in return. We can’t give when our cup is empty. The word is always a great source of fulfilment, nonetheless, to know God is to know ourselves so find things that you love that bring you joy. You don’t have to be good at it and it doesn’t have to be something strenuous as rocket science but it needs to be something that boosts your moral. Anything from a simple bubble bath to taking a vacation (if you are able to) can be ways to give yourself love before you are able to give love to others. If you don’t know how to love yourself, How do you expect others to love you accordingly?

             On the other hand, You cant tell other what to do if you aren’t doing it yourself. How are you going to tell someone to lose weight when you don’t even workout? Or How are you going to tell someone they’re dirty when your car or house isn’t even clean? Its very Hypocritical. Yes, we are suppose to call each other out when we see areas of improvement (out of love of course) but we can’t do that if we aren’t doing the same thing for ourselves. We have to ourselves accountable to hold someone else accountable. Hypocrisy shouldn’t be in our character.

            All in All, Our roles in life has gotten us accustomed to delegating or wanting to assist when we see a need but we are unable to fully show the love and compassion we desire if we don’t do that for ourselves. Don’t be that coach that sits on the bench during the game; get up, get active and lead by example not hypocrisy. Love yourself and hold yourself accountable so that you can use your God given talents at its full potential. Fix the plank out of your own eye before you try to fix the blank in others. Once your vision is clear, others will really hear.

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