posted on Dec, 1 2009 @ 03:01 PM
It's an interesting, and often seemingly accurate phrase. Yet, it flies in the face of Christianity, which so few understand. As was stated above,
the phrase is often attributed with Ben Franklin, but I'm willing to bet that most people you'd interview on the street would say it comes out of
the Bible.
What's unfortunate, though, is that so many people who discover this isn't in the Bible at all, but almost the opposite is, do the exact opposite.
They pray but do no action, as the story above illustrates with the dude who drowns in the flood.
The Bible tells us to surrender to God, that God will fight (and win) our battles for us, but it also says to practice wisdom. I think that
that is what the important reminder is.
God helps those who rely on Him and surrender to Him, but He also wants us to be practicing wisdom (Proverbs 4:10-13, Proverbs 22:17-18, etc.). He
calls Himself Father because (in part) He trains us and teaches us to walk in His ways better.
Take the example DG brings up. God says He will heal, but He also says to practice wisdom. If you don't want to be sick, don't ask for a blood
transfusion from someone with AIDS. Unless God says otherwise.
Wait, what?
Someone like John G. Lake, who was called to a special ministry, seems like he practiced no wisdom. When he was young, his family was decimated by
illness. He cried out to God, all his life, to be made a healer. Lake, born in 1870, wound up going out to Africa to help combat the plague there as a
missionary healer. Many were dying, and very few doctors were willing to go because the chance of infection was nearly 100%.
Yet, Lake spent over a decade helping there. Was that humanly wise? Is putting a gun to your head that you're pretty sure isn't loaded and pulling
the trigger wise? Yet, I would say he was wise, because he followed God instead of following the wisdom of man.
There's one story I read, where two English doctors come down to deliver medicines and to see what the plague outbreak's effects have been. When
they see Lake, they're amazed he's still alive and ask him how he's survived so long.
He took them to his lab, where he showed them a live culture of plague bacteria in a microscope. He then took a drop of that culture and placed it on
his finger, and showed them a slide of that. All the bacteria were dead. When asked how this happened, Lake replied that it was because God had sent
him there and God was not going to let some silly disease effect him.
The point being, God helps those. He doesn't always help us in the way we want (Franklin Roosevelt, who, when asked what his political philosophy was
by a reporter, responded, "Philosophy? I serve God..." suffered from polio, which many historians believe is what gave him the strength to get
America out of a depression and fight a world war... What may have come had he been free from polio?), but He does help us.
Sometimes He changes our hearts. Sometimes He gives us or grows in us the discipline to maintain, say, a germ resistant environment. Sometimes He
miraculously steps in, despite all our efforts, and saves us for the Earthly hell we've placed ourselves in.
So practice wisdom, listen to wisdom, but know that God will work all things for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28, emphasis added)