How God Helps Those Who Help Themselves: The Sufficiency of Grace and The Accountability of Effort

Ever since I can remember, people have always told me, “God helps those who help themselves.” And without blinking, without a moment’s doubt, I believed them. I believed the empowering truth of this statement then, and I firmly believe it still today. I believe God helps those who are ready, willing and able, and want to help themselves. This statement, “God helps those who help themselves,” articulates our belief that we are under the responsibility to help ourselves, first, so God, in turn, will help us. Helping ourselves is the requisite, the precursor to attaining God’s help. And most of us believe God wants to help us. It’s really a matter of discovering how God helps us, because I believe God wants to help us, and I believe we know we need God’s help. Then it becomes recognizing what we need to do to help ourselves so that God can help us. That’s the thrust of the rest of this manuscript. There are things we do and behaviors we choose, both positive and negative, accidentally and intentionally, acts of commission and omission, that impact how we experience God, one another and this thing we call life, both constructively and malevolently. This is a manuscript that names those “things” that help God help us. These things are easily within the grasp of every human being if you truly desire God’s help. And most of us know, we need all the help we can get.