GENUINE SUPPORTIVE HELPER

A 'genuine supportive helper' is a term I use to signify a true friend who can provide encouragement or emotional help when you need it. Apart from the Almighty God being our Father, you may need a sort of encouragement and motivation from time to time, though it varies or differs depending on individual functionalities and operations. It also varies according to our personal needs, conditions, and our personalities. Moreover, God is our ultimate helper because our help comes from Him. However, He appoints and uses men to facilitate this help.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 4:10 New Living Translation (NLT) 'If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.'

True genuine friends or helpers are God-sent. When you walk with God, He directs your steps and orchestrates your connections. This is why we need to be sensitive to the leading of God's Spirit in all our affairs, because that's how we get the right connections without losing touch with His essence. When you meet the right person who is extremely supportive of your welfare, your happiness and joy will be their main concern. They can go all the way for you, spiritually and physically because God is involved.

That's why you must pray that you would be surrounded by people who are genuinely supportive, so that if need be, when you turn to them, they could offer you the right support, encouragement and godly advice. The reason you must be prayerful is for you to avoid going to someone who can't handle your issues with due respect. By sharing your situation with such people, you may experience temporary relief, but if they are not mature enough to handle it, you are in the soup.

It's okay to turn to proven friends for spiritual and emotional support, if they themselves are spiritually mature. The Bible says, 'One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother' (Proverbs 18:24 NIV). That means, you must pray to discern your true supportive friends. A true friend is that particular person who can go all the way to pray for you, identify with your faults, and walk with you until you establish significant victory in any area you need it in life. And when you get on the wrong path, they won't allow you to make excuses or support you on that track because they want to make sure you get it right in a godly way.

Turning to spiritual fathers and mentors for supportive help is totally fine. Paul says, 'You might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers' (1 Corinthians 4:15 NKJV). You are meant to obey their advice and heed their counsel because spiritual fathers and mothers are assigned over you, by the Lord, for your own good and progress. Think about a good father's attributes. He guides you properly but never condemns you because all He wants, is the best for you. He evaluates you based on your best qualities rather than flaws.

A good spiritual father or mother or mentor recognises your potential, brings out the best in you, and keeps on working with you until you become all that God has designed for you to be. Also note that spiritual parent is more about spiritual connection. Therefore ask God for a good spiritual father, mother, mentor and supportive friend, and ensure you walk in obedience and stay in touch with them.

Scripture Reading - Philippians 2:1-7; Romans 12:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:11; Hebrews 10:24.

Guided Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, I'm grateful for the gift of discernment to hear your voice as you guide me in my steps to the right people and as I guide people rightly. By your Spirit, when I speak to people through your Word and bring the verses of encouragement and comfort to their attention, their fears are overcome, their anxieties are calmed and their challenges are levelled. Your Word replaces their despair with the confidence to trust you and act on it. And I pray that your guidance will be clear to them from time to time, in Jesus' Name, Amen!