Making Others Feel Useful
Mamas with babies, toddlers, young children, and teens can hardly imagine a time when they won’t be busy, busy, busy. God gives a blessing in the midst of all that busyness: those mamas feel useful. Deep down we all want to feel useful.
Ray and I have been working our way through Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1822-1896). As I wrote last December, Hughes was the founder of the utopian community of Rugby. The novel tells the story of the preschool and schooldays of Tom Brown, the son of an English squire.
When Tom was very young, he had two special friends —Noah and Benjamin, nicknamed Benjy. Both are retired servants of the Squire’s father. Noah was:
. . . a keen, dry old man of almost ninety, but still able to totter about. He talked to Tom quite as if he were one of his own family . . . But old Benjy was [the] young master’s real delight and refuge. He was a youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old—a cheery, humorous, kind-hearted old man, full of . . . all sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children.
Among the many things Benjy taught Tom was the history of Tom’s ancestors.
Benjy’s relationship with Tom was a blessing in his old age. However, in time Benjy’s rheumatism caused him great pain.
Benjy was seized in the back and loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to give in before long. . . Cheery and unmindful of himself, as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world.
Let’s think about the old Benjys we know who might be longing to feel useful again and of the young Benjys who might be longing to feel useful for the first time. While it’s often easier and faster to conquer our own to-do lists ourselves, sometimes it’s good to say yes to others’ offers of help so that they, like Benjy, can feel useful. Sometimes the best way to help someone else is to allow that person to help you.
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ,
if there is any consolation of love,
if there is any fellowship of the Spirit,
if any affection and compassion,Â
make my joy complete
by being of the same mind,
maintaining the same love,
united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit,
but with humility of mind
regard one another as more important than yourselves;
do not merely look out for your own personal interests,
but also for the interests of others.
Philippians 2:1-4
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