“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

God will always bring you to a point of having to get past yourself when it comes to helping people who are in real need. The parable of the Good Samaritan addressed the question, “Who really demonstrates what it means to love your neighbor?” The religious establishment spent its energy trying to help people determine who was and wasn’t actually considered a neighbor. They ended up teaching all the different ways it was possible to NOT live out your faith.

Jesus used this story to demonstrate that God’s love was to be extended to everyone, even the least of these, even when it came at a cost. Helping people who suffer, especially when it comes at a cost, is one of the most essential ways we come to fully understand our own beliefs about God.

The suffering of others can get overwhelming. It can discourage and depress when it doesn’t seem to end. Especially when we don’t know what to do, how to fix it, the right words. One word for it is Compassion Fatigue. Typically this is used to describe people who are directly involved with others who are suffering. Sometimes, networks of family and friends can start to feel drained and at a loss as the suffering of a loved one continues and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

The Good Samaritan lived out loving his neighbor, even as a despised outcast, by putting his money and time where his faith was. He demonstrated his belief and was willing to go even farther by promising to return and continue to fund the recovery. Sometimes recovery comes at a greater cost than we imagined:

• You have to be faithful and follow up
• People have emotional needs that they’re not even aware of
• Stop asking, just do something that you’d want done for yourself
• Every little thing really does count
• You don’t have to be friends to be a Good Samaritan
• Don’t stop praying, pray right now, send a prayer

“They never fail who die in a great cause.”  – George Gordon Byron

The greatest cause you can commit to each day is to find a way to love your neighbor in a real way that matters. You will soon learn that if you make this commitment you and most of your own problems will begin to disappear.