Saturday – Open Topic

Reading – Proverbs 11:23-31

Highlight Verse:

“The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭11‬:‭25‬ ‭NLT‬‬

One of my daughters is helping a friend who is going through a difficult time. The help is actually costing quite a bit of money.

That sparked the conversation between her and another friend (I was there but stayed out of it) about when help turns the corner to enabling.

That is a tough question without a clear answer.

I have had help from friends in the past that could be considered quite costly. In my case, it brought me through difficult times rather than encouraging bad habits in my life. I’ve been able to pay it forward to others since then.

I have seen rare occasions when people have ended up stuck in a vicious cycle of dependence. In those cases, breaking that cycle became very painful, but they got through it.

In the vast majority of cases I’ve seen, generosity was more helpful than hurtful.

Scripture backs that up with numerous verses about generosity – and a handful cautioning against encouraging foolish behavior.

In my opinion, it is best to err on the side of generosity.

Do you have stories about how people have helped you?
Have you seen generosity have negative results? Did those negative results get reversed? How?