How God Helps Those

Who Help Themselves

By Rev. Grant F.C. Gillard, D.Min.

Chapter 1: Our Common Consensus

Back in the days before my ordained ministry, a church I attended sought to successfully hire the perfect seminary intern to work with the deacons and the youth group.  Thankfully, they found a young man perfectly suited for the job.  He was a biblically-minded, Spirit-led, Christ-filled believer with a heart for lost youth. 

The congregation commissioned him to the ministry of outreach.  He agreed to serve our congregation for a twelve-month internship, taking a welcomed respite from his formal seminary education.

He eagerly came to the church on short notice.  We felt blessed to find him, and believed God specifically brought him to our congregation.  His gifts and talents fit our needs.  A family with junior high school aged boys graciously allowed him to sleep on the hide-a-bed until he could find himself an apartment.  We all knew, in this college town, there were plenty of apartments readily available during the summer recess.  Everything about this arrangement seemed blessed by God.

The intern had been with us about two weeks when the deacons called their monthly meeting.  The chairman of the deacons formally introduced our intern, outlined the part of his job responsibilities that concerned the deacons, and commented that the intern was temporarily staying with a church family.

The chairman then turned to the intern and asked, "And how is your search for an apartment going?"

"Well, not as good as I had hoped," the intern said.  "But I've been specifically praying about it.  I've earnestly asked the Lord to reveal to me the ideal apartment where I need to stay in accordance with God's will."

"What have you been praying for?" one of the deacons responded, thinking perhaps he might have an idea for, maybe even an answer to, the intern's prayer request.

"I've been looking for the upstairs of a spacious, old Victorian house that overlooks the lake, with a large, fenced-in back yard so I can get a dog, within walking distance of the high school so I can work with the youth in the fall, and hopefully, within my budget of $200 a month."

The chairman roared with delight, "And don't we all!"  Then he lowered his voice and said, "Seriously, how has the search been going?  What leads do you have?"

"I'm still waiting for God to move the right landlord to give me a call," the intern politely responded.

The chairman grew more intense and said, "Son, it sounds like we need to sit down with the classified ads and make some phone calls.  I give you credit for praying about this situation, but you've got to get moving.  God can't steer a parked car.  You've got to get out there and knock on some doors; make some phone calls.  You need to make the first move; show some initiative.  Don't you know that God helps those who help themselves?"

The intern had no answer, but his silence conceded the chairman was correct.  I, too, quietly contemplated what the deacon chair had said as it applied to several of my personal situations bogged down in the mire of senseless procrastination.  

I thought to myself, "Yes.  We need to take action.  We need to be responsible and show initiative.  The intern can't sit back and wait for God.  God can't help us unless we get the ball rolling.  How can we expect God to help us if we're not even willing to help ourselves?  It must be true what the deacon said that God helps those who help themselves."

As the chairman switched gears and moved the docket, I began thumbing through my Bible trying to find the text where it tells us that God helps those who help themselves.  I knew it was in the Bible somewhere.  It sounded perfectly biblical and divinely inspired. 

Yet for all my biblical training, I couldn't find it.  For the rest of the meeting, my mind was preoccupied.  My spirit was restless.  Where was that passage?  It sounds like a New Testament text, maybe from Paul.  Perhaps it's from the Sermon on the Mount.  I couldn't remember reading it anywhere lately.  Maybe it's found in a little-read minor prophet or buried in a genealogy.

I spent the rest of the deacon's meeting mentally searching for this text.  Where in the Scriptures does it say, "God helps those who help themselves?"  Psalm 46:1, "God is our help," was close, but not close enough.

The next day I dug into an exhaustive biblical concordance and came up empty.  Then, borrowing a secular book on familiar quotations, I found it.  To my surprise, this quotation is not located in the Scriptures, but in Poor Richard's Almanac, a secular book of proverbial sayings compiled by Ben Franklin in 1736. 

How strange that we assume this great advice to be from God's Word.  How interesting I found it in a book of secularized advice, from someone who was more of a deist than a Christian.  Also interesting, is how we equate this secular proverb with Scripture, and if not in its origin, then in its presumed sacred intent.

The quotation had a footnote which led me to another previous source.  Apparently Ben Franklin wasn't the original author.  Many have helped themselves to this proverbial saying with a note of authoritative authorship.  This same thought was published by Algernon Sidney, in his Discourses on Government, in 1698.  George Herbert earlier paraphrased it in Jacula Prudentum (1651) when he wrote, "Help thyself and God will help thee." 

Another footnote led me to an even earlier source which appears to be the origin.  This proverb was written by Aesop, the author famous for his fables.  In 550 B.C. he wrote in Hercules and the Wagoner that, "The gods help them that help themselves."

In Aesop's fable, a man driving a horse-drawn wagon becomes stuck in the mud.  The more the horses pull, the more the wagon sinks in the mud.

The man jumps out of the wagon, kneels down and prays, "O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress." 

Hercules appears to the man, but instead of jumping in to help Hercules replies, "Man, don't sprawl there.  Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel.  The gods help them that help themselves."

Now many good Christians would say that prayer ought to be our first option rather than our last resort.  There is a Latin phrase, Laborare est Orare, which means, "To work is to pray."  Surely prayer brings effects more things in this world than we realize, and more than we can physically bring about through our hard work alone. 

Still, we need to do something as we pray.  We need to do something such that God can empower and enable our intentions in order to create measurable results.  We can't sit around and expect God to miraculously repair our mistakes (although I've been the gracious recipient of such unsolicited miracles).  We need to pray, then act to help ourselves.  After seeking God's guidance, we need to put our shoulder to the wheel, and allow God to bless our efforts.  After all, God can't steer a parked car, and if God is your co-pilot, then you're in the wrong seat.

The more I probed the origin of this old saying, I found it has earlier, paraphrased versions of the same thought.  Coincidentally, this same thought was captured by Aeschylus who wrote, "God loves to help him who strives to help himself." 

Hippocrates wrote, "Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand."  

Euripides wrote, "Try first thyself, and after call in God; For to the worker God himself lends aid." 

Sophocles wrote, "Heaven helps not the men who will not act."

The idea that God helps those who help themselves is not found in the Bible despite statistics and surveys that show 80% of born-again, evangelical Christians (incorrectly) believe it to be so.

Now I faced a dilemma.  I knew the statement that God helps those who help themselves to be true in principle.  I believed it in my heart and trusted its truth as an old reliable friend.  But it wasn't found in the scriptures despite the spiritual authority and practical legitimacy it brought to our reality. 

Now my question became, "Can a spiritual truth be valued even if it isn't directly quoted word-for-word in the Scriptures?"  

I thought of several other spiritual truths that don't reside verbatim in the Bible like, "God hates the sin but loves the sinner." 

I also recalled a comforting phrase that told me, "The ground is level at the foot of the cross."  These powerful words have brought comfort and strength, yet their direct quotation is not found in Scripture.

We also find ourselves guided by other non-scriptural proverbs, or secularized paraphrased versions of biblical material.  Don't we often hear that we mistakenly "Rob Peter to pay Paul," and do we not believe that "Cleanliness is next to godliness?" 

How much do we believe that, "All things come to those who wait," or "God acts in mysterious ways?"  Doesn't, "He who hesitates is lost," have a biblical ring about it?

We often say that "Money is the root of all evil," yet scripture says it is the love of money, not money itself.  The list goes on of such spiritual truths not found in Scripture, yet still inspire our faith and hope.  Which doesn't mean these secular sayings are bad or unprofitable for our spiritual discernment.  Our lack of biblical knowledge merely gives them more status than they deserve.

My real dilemma following the deacon's meeting had to do with following advice for its spiritual value even though it lacked biblical authority.  Is it possible to have a spiritual truth as an abiding principle in my life even if it doesn't come directly from Scripture? 

I've known many godly saints who won't accept any truth unless it's found in the red-lettered quotation of Jesus Christ straight from the King James Version.  Am I elevating common folk wisdom to the priority of God's Word?  Is it possible that God could use a common sense principle to spiritually guide his people?  Do the means justify the ends?

The more I searched the Scriptures, the more I was convinced I wouldn't find the quotation, or any variation thereof, that God helps those who help themselves.  It didn't matter how much I wanted to believe it was godly wisdom from the pages of Scripture.  It simply wasn't in the Bible. 

But the more I searched the Scriptures, the more I discovered this principle presented over and over in the pages of Scripture by example and illustration.  Though not explicitly quoted, several biblical saints implicitly lived their lives with the blessed assistance of God that came when they sought to help themselves, to take initiative, or to take responsibility for the situation at hand.

In many stories taken from Scripture, God blessed the intentions and efforts of the saints who helped themselves. There were people who were down and out, sometimes by their own stupidity or prideful arrogance.  But God helped them as they took initiative, repented, walked by faith, expressed hope, and persevered in the face of persecution. 

God blessed them, not as they were sitting still waiting for God to act, rather God blessed them as they were helping themselves by taking action.  As they took initiative, God helped them.  As they assumed responsibility, God assisted them.  As they reached out, God blessed them.

Sometimes, even when they made mistakes or operated from misinformed circumstances, God lovingly redeemed their actions.  God moved them to the place where they could be useful to his purposes.  But first they had to help themselves by being available to God.

Then a thought occurred to me.  As we look at the lives of biblical saints (and sinners), can we discover how they helped themselves that enabled God to help them?  Can we see the principles and actions from the Bible that apply to our world today?  Do we believe that God helps us as we help ourselves, and are we ready to do what we must do? 

The more I read the Bible, the more I found God indeed helps those who help themselves.  While you won't find this exact quotation literally written on the printed page, you'll find it lived out in the daily examples of God's people. 

Even today God is still at work.  God helps the people who work to help themselves.  God continues to help us as we take the necessary steps to help ourselves.  As we take the responsibility to do what we must do to help ourselves, God stands willing to help. 

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