"God helps those who help themselves"

[BloodandFire]

One of my teachers uses this line often (he happens to be a Christian Brother). I then used it with my Protestant leaning mother in the room and she said it was not biblical. She said something like, “God helps those that are obedient.” Any thoughts?

 

[Toni]

I have also heard this many times. It is not a biblical statement that I remember word for word. But In St. James he says pray without works is dead.

So basically you can pray away for a job, but you still need to fill out applications. You can pray for a house but you still need to work to have it. So pray but work and you are helping yourself and God helps you.
(Just a simplified version of St. James prayer without works is dead.That is the biblical end.)

 

[anonymoususer]

doesn’t scripture teach us to help others before we help ourselves?

 

[sconea]

Have heard this a lot too…thought it was from Ben Franklin.

 

[Rob_s_Wife]

Actually God helps all His children - He just doesn’t always get credit for it.

This is an old joke:

A poor man prayers every night: “Lord God I beg you please let me win the lottery! I am so faithfull and dedicated to you and this one thing is all I ask of you!”

The man prays like this every night for several years, then one night he is full of bitterness because once again he has not won the lottery and he feels God isn’t listening. So he gets on his knees one more time and pleads, “Lord! Why don’t you answer my prayers?! WHY won’t you help me with this one request? Haven’t I been a good christian? WHY Lord?!”

ALl of the sudden he hears the voice of the Lord in booming voice say in frustration and annoyance: “BUY A LOTTERY TICKET!”
The question isn’t whether you are helping yourself - the question is are you helping God?

 

[Dj_Roy_Albert]

sconea:

Have heard this a lot too…thought it was from Ben Franklin.

I believe so.

 

[jimmy]

Rob's Wife:

Actually God helps all His children - He just doesn’t always get credit for it.

This is an old joke:

A poor man prayers every night: “Lord God I beg you please let me win the lottery! I am so faithfull and dedicated to you and this one thing is all I ask of you!”

The man prays like this every night for several years, then one night he is full of bitterness because once again he has not won the lottery and he feels God isn’t listening. So he gets on his knees one more time and pleads, “Lord! Why don’t you answer my prayers?! WHY won’t you help me with this one request? Haven’t I been a good christian? WHY Lord?!”

ALl of the sudden he hears the voice of the Lord in booming voice say in frustration and annoyance: “BUY A LOTTERY TICKET!”
The question isn’t whether you are helping yourself - the question is are you helping God?

 

[AlanFromWichita]

It’s dumb. It’s a way to tell a person to rely on self rather than God. It makes you sound pious while denying God’s role.

If they can help themselves, then why do they need God?

Maybe this means, God helps those who do what they can to enable Him to help. That’s quite a different thing.

I have more respect for someone who leaves God out of it when they are lecturing me, and say, “why don’t you help yourself, because I believe you can.” Better yet, say, “I’ll help you, and together I’m sure we can do it.”

In Franklin’s day, maybe this saying had some application.

Alan

 

[Liberian]

BloodandFire:

One of my teachers uses this line often (he happens to be a Christian Brother). I then used it with my Protestant leaning mother in the room and she said it was not biblical. She said something like, “God helps those that are obedient.” Any thoughts?

I’ve heard it cited as Hezekiah 13:13.

(This is a joke: there is no book of Hezekiah in the Bible.)

I will agree with your mother, but the fact remains that in life one tends to make one’s own luck a lot of the time. I’ve also heard it said that God helps those who are unable to help themselves.

• Liberian

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

While the principle that God helps those who help themselves doesn’t appear in the Bible in so many words, the concept appears over & over, many times.

Look at I Kings 1:1-31. This is a very detailed account of Adonijah’s attempt to push aside his half-brother Solomon & seize power while their father David is close to death, and the efforts of Bathsheba (Solomon’s mother) and Nathan to foil Adonijah’s designs. Note that the reading relates what Adonijah was up to no less than 4 times: The account of the text itself in 1:5-10; Nathan’s version to Bathsheba in 1:11-13; Bathsheba’s version to David in 1:17-19; and Nathan’s version to David with Bathsheba present in 1:24-26. Note the differences in the 4 accounts. Everything Nathan told Bathsheba to say to David, everything Bathsheba said to David with Nathan not around & everything Nathan said to David in Bathsheba’s presence was calculated for effect. Nathan wanted Bathsheba to be alarmed, he wanted her to alarm David & he wanted to reinforce that alarm in the king. The late Prof. Nehama Leibovitz, in her Studies in Bereshit/Genesis (amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9995376849/qid=1069249373/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-2528934-2880800?v=glance&s=books), writes:

What prompted Scripture to elaborate at such length on the details of the story and its recapitulations? Evidently it wished to show how each one strove with all his might to set at nought Adonijah’s designs that the word of the Lord through His prophet should be fulfilled (as recounted in I Chronicles 28:5). [Our 15th century Sage, Don Isaac] Abravanel (see us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Abravanel.html) however still has the following question to ask: “How came Nathan the prophet to doubt his own prophecy that Solomon would be king that he should feel that all this effort was necessary to further it?” It is very likely that the unusual detail into which the chapter enters was meant to answer the above question, to show that neither the prophet not those who received his message, relied on miracles, that the prophecy would be fulfilled by itself. They did not regard prophecy as freeing them from action, absolving them of responsibility for their destiny. On the contrary, they accepted the promise of God as obliging them to work and strive to the best of their ability and understanding towards its fulfillment.

In other words: God helps those who help themselves.

Be well!

ssv

 

[Todd_Easton]

According to one source:

“God helps those who help themselves.” is by Algernon Sidney, Discourse Concerning Government (ch. II, pt. XXIII), published in 1690, seven years after the English political theorist’s execution.

However, the Greeks expressed similar sentiments much earlier:“God helps him who strives hard.” Euripides (about 480-406 B.C.), Eumenidoe.

“To the man who himself strives earnestly, God also lends a helping hand.” Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) Persoe (742)

 

[Zooey]

stillsmallvoice:

Hi all!

While the principle that God helps those who help themselves doesn’t appear in the Bible in so many words, the concept appears over & over, many times.

In other words: God helps those who help themselves.
ssv

But what about those who cannot help themselves? Are we not in danger of neglecting them, if we adopt this as a way of thought & action???

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Zooey, you posted:

But what about those who cannot help themselves? Are we not in danger of neglecting them, if we adopt this as a way of thought & action???

I never said that God helps those who help themselves only. God forbid! Not only does God surely help those who cannot help themselves (see Deuteronomy 32:10-12) but He expects us to help, look after & tend to those who cannot do so themselves.

Be well!

ssv

 

[BeluvdLily]

To me, the point of this is to do what you can, however little or great and get started in the right direction and I’ve always found that God more than meets me half way. When I have needs or goals, I take what action I can while listening and praying for God’s instruction and I rely on Him to do what I can’t. To send His angels before me and to make the crooked paths straight. To me that is what this means. Not to just sit around waiting on God and not taking any responsibility to help oneself.

There have been times when I don’t know what to do so I do nothing and I ask God to show me so clearly that I cannot mistake His directive and it always works. A path makes itself clear.

I don’t believe it has anything to do with helping others before ourselves or to do with people who cannot help themselves. Of course we should help others where and when we can. People who cannot help themselves in any way are rare. Almost anyone can make some sort of effort no matter how small.

One of my favorite quotes:

“If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” -Henry David Thoreau

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I believe it is actually from Aesop’s fables.

“A Wagoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. He came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. So the Wagoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. 'O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress.” But Hercules appeared to him, and said: 'Man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel. The gods help them that help themselves."

Hi guys–I am moving in three days–Ack, 3 days!!–just had time to make a quick check of the old e-mail and a brief dash to the forums–and you know me, any old literary reference or quote that needs to be researched and I CAN’T RESIST!

Just took 224 books to the library (donation)–don’t worry, there are still about 2600 left–I can’t give up some of my favorites and neither can my mom, or my girls. . .

Wish me luck, at least we’re supposed to have nice weather, sunny and in 80s, for moving. . .

Hope to see you guys in September!

 

[Chazemataz]

That is half true. Say that a person is comin at you with a knife. Do you just stand there and pray? Do you expect God to send an archangel down to protect you if you do? No. You turn to escape, or take out pepper spray, or call for help. Of course, I would say a silent prayer when approunched with such a situation, however I wouldnt just stand there. i am NOT saying that God doesnt help His beleivers. He does. He just helps those who don’t stand there and sit on their lazy butts expecting God to send down the Blessed Virgin Mary down to go and ace that test for you.

 

[catholic2]

Methinks 'tis more biblical that God helps those who cannot help themselves. 'Tis why we need a Savior, 'tis why the proud are brought low, the poor and helpless are uplifted.

 

[Athanasiy]

There Is A Good Proverb;

‘‘when You Pray For The Harvest, Do Not Forget To Work In The Field.’’

 

[RNRobert]

I believe it is actually from Aesop’s fables.

Yes, that is where I heard it too.

Chuck Colson, in his book Loving God, makes a telling comment that those who believe in that saying ought to read the book of Amos.
Yes, we can’t always sit around waiting for God to do something (I believe St Ignatius of Loyola said to “Work as if everything depended on you, and pray as if everything depended on God”) there are people who sometimes cannot do for themselves (I think this is why Scripture talks so much about caring for widows and orphans).
The saying is the conventional wisdom of the world. But Jesus’
Beatitudes turns that sort of thinking on its ear.