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Our helpfulness—our care for souls—starts with our need for care. We need God, and we need other people. Maturity through dependence is our goal. As a way to put this humility to the test, we ask for prayer. This will contribute to a church culture that is less self-protective and more united.
We want to know what is important to the other person, and this takes us into what Scripture calls the heart.
You know you have entered into the heart when you discover wants, affections, or desires.
rest and health
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These desires of the heart are important to the Lord, and he invites us to pour out our...
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A friend asked me, “How is your heart?”
In other words, this man was essentially asking, “How are you doing in your spiritual battles?
If we are to help wisely, we want to know the heart and the significant influences on the heart. Among those many influences are two representatives in particular: other people and our physical bodies.
Our bodies, our work, our wealth, our culture, other people, and even spiritual forces are all in engaged in negotiations with our hearts, either challenging our beliefs or confirming them. God, of course, is over and through them all, and it is his voice we want to hear most clearly.
These responses reveal important matters, but when we care for others, we rarely rush into the heart’s responses first.
When we hear about someone’s good relationships, we are blessed along with them. When we hear about hard relationships, we take notice, hope at some time to hear more, and ask how we can pray.
“How is your health?” This is the most common greeting throughout the world. “Could you pray for healing?” This is our most common prayer request.
Here is a general rule: the more you understand a person’s physical weaknesses, the more patient you will be with that person.
Be personal and pray—those are two skills we hope to master.
The rule for being personal is to say something when you are given access to someone’s treasures.
example, it is almost always unhelpful to give advice to someone who is troubled unless the troubled one asks. Advice is what we would do in another’s situation, even though we might never have been in that situation.
It typically sounds teacher-like, and it bypasses compassion. It is rarely personal. So hold back your advice unless it is requested. Talking about yourself might also be unhelpful, at least initially:
Your intent might be to further invite the person to be open, and in some relationships these comments might actually do that. But they can also change the topic from what is on the other person’s heart to what was on your own. So if you do offer your own analogous story, be sure to get back to what is happening with the other person.
You might ask a few broader questions: “Where did you go to church before?” Meanwhile, you are always listening for what is most important. You are listening for her affections, her emotions.
