One day, a neighbor greeted Jean in her local grocery store and asked her, “When are you due?” Jean wasn’t due. She wasn’t even pregnant. She was simply a 214-pound homemaker who tended to eat too many cookies. But that moment was a turning point. Jean Nidetch made the decision to lose weight and, in the process, she founded Weight Watchers and began to help other people do the same thing. She passed away leaving a legacy of helping others on April 29, 2015 at the age of ninety-one.
Jean Nidetch didn’t wait to lead and help others. She did so while she was still in the midst of her own problem. She didn’t get herself together first and then help others. We are in the best position to help others when we can relate to them and they can relate to us. Nidetch considered her members as fellow sufferers, not people in which she felt sorry. She cared for them and wanted to help.
I tend to think that I’m not able to help someone else unless I’ve already attained that success myself. I struggle with thinking that no one is interested unless I’ve achieved an awesome transformation story. It’s my pride that wants to run the race, get accolades and then step on stage to broadcast how I did it. Although, it is possible for people to learn something by watching someone up on a stage, it may not be the best way.
Isn’t Jean’s way of thinking more helpful? The idea of linking arms with like-minded people and helping each other to go forward is very appealing. I shouldn’t wait to try to help other people. I can share ideas now that are in the process of helping me even though I’m not finished yet.
Seeking to help other people even though I don’t feel “perfect” is a way of clothing myself in humility toward other people (1 Peter 5:5). I’m not putting myself out there as a leader who has it all together. I’m putting myself out there as a sojourner who is seeking to be of the same mind as the people around me.
This way of thinking is also in line with the second greatest commandment—loving others as yourself. I’m humbling myself to serve them instead of looking out over them from that stage. I’m seeking to help and understand them. I’m devoted to them.
It’s easier to distance myself from other people. It’s a lot harder to bear another person’s burdens—to pray for them even when I’m still hurting myself. Although when I do, I feel encouraged by encouraging them. It’s one of those God equations that doesn’t seem to make sense to my finite mind. You go to help somebody else and you walk away encouraged and strengthened.
Then there is also the idea of you reap what you sow. When I feel down and in need of help, God will provide someone to encourage and help me. When you stir the pot continually, those good deeds affect everyone.
Leading and helping people from beside them, instead of towering over them, also brings accountability into the picture. Someone else may see what I’m not seeing and I can see some things that they don’t see.
It also helps you to understand the next person. I’m less likely to envy them because I’m seeing them as an individual with both good and bad traits. I’m also seeking to magnify their good even as I’m gently pointing out their bad. I’m accepting others just as they are but I also desire for them to improve. A peaceful atmosphere of acceptance and regarding one another as more important than yourself is the best conditions to help others.
Do you tend to wait until you’ve made it before you seek to help others? Or do you learn as you go?
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. ~ Colossians 3:16