Helping Someone Who’s Struggling
John 5: 1-8
June 1, 2025 (followed by Healing Service)
This is one of my classic stories from the five years that Lori and I spent as Home Missionaries at Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. It was our first summer there. I was wet under the ears in living in this new culture.
One of the activities I was finding great fulfillment in doing was playing with the children during their summer recreation program at the Settlement. I would go up the hill to the playground every afternoon. I’d have a good time getting to know the area children by swinging them on the swings and watching them go down the slides.
Late one afternoon, I see one of the kids walking down the busy street in front of our house with their mother. I go over to talk to the youngster and meet his mother. The mother mentions that another of their children was taken to a hospital down in Tennessee – just today.
She says to me, “I’m trying to get down there to see my son but at the moment I’m out of money. You know my check doesn’t come till the first of the month and with these crazy prices for food these days… I heard you were a preacher. Could you give me 20 dollars so I can go visit my son in Knoxville?”
I give her the money. I feel sorry for her situation. I tell her I’d be praying for her son. I head back home.
It’s about four hours later, around 9:00 at night: we get a knock on our door. It’s the same woman. She says, “I’m sorry to bother you. But that 20 dollars was not enough gas money to get me to the hospital. I actually need another 20 dollars more.”
I ponder the situation for a moment and then say, “Okay. You can wait inside here while I get you the money.”
As I’m giving her the second 20 dollar bill, she says, “Oh and by the way, could you give me a ride to the person who’s going to drive me? It’s just down the street a little.”
I say, “O’kay, if it’s just a short distance.”
We get in the car and drive down the road a few miles. She says, “It’s that house right there.”
I turn in this long driveway. As she gets out of the car she says, “If you don’t mind, could you wait here just to make sure that I get my ride?”
I say, “O’kay.”
I wait about fifteen minutes. She comes out and says, “I’m sorry, but they can’t drive me today. Could you take me home?”
“Okay.”
So, I drive her home.
It wasn’t until the next day at church as I’m telling someone about my experience the night before when the church member said, “Preacher, you’ve been had. That lady is one of the area’s biggest druggies. You were the driver and the funder of some drug deal.”
It raises the issue: How do you best help someone who’s struggling?
Our Biblical story today features a man who has been struggling for many years. Actually, he had been sick for 38 years. Evidently, it had something to do with not being able to walk.
He is sitting by this pool called Bethzatha. It was said that an angel from God would sometimes come and stir the water. The first person to get into that pool after that would supposedly be healed.
Jesus sees the man and asks, “Do you want to be healed?”
The man says, “I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first.”
Just like the woman who I did the drug deal with in Kentucky, the man uses two techniques to get help: Blame and excuses. He blames his problem on someone else: No one will put me in the pool. He then uses the excuse: When I try to get in, someone always gets in there first.”
Blame and excuses. The check doesn’t come in till the first of the month and with the crazy prices for food. They won’t drive me tonight. So much blame and so many excuses.
In the midst of this, how can we help someone who is struggling?
We all have that family member, don’t we? That family member who has struggled over the years. In earlier years it might have been with alcohol or drugs. These days, it’s more often with money. They have struggled to keep down a job. It means that money is always a problem.
It becomes our business, because this struggling family member is always asking us for money. We care deeply about this person. We love them. They are family. We want to help them.
How can we help this struggling family member?
What should we do?
Over the past month, we’ve been looking at the new book by Mel Robbins entitled: The Let Them Theory. It’s about not letting others control us or not trying to control others. We simply Let them. Let them live their lives.
Let’s hear what Mel says about our situation today.
Mel says, “Let them struggle….Yes, they need your love and support. But here’s the hard part: They do not need to be rescued. I will say this again: The more you try to rescue someone from their problems, the more likely they will continue to drown in them….The more you rescue, the more they sink…
When you enable others with your money, words and actions you don’t foster independence – you hinder their healing. You prolong their suffering, their debt, their breakdown. You think you’re making it easier, but you’re actually making their recovery or their self-improvement harder.
Adults heal when they’re ready to the do the hard work….The struggling person needs pain in order to galvanize the will to change…Let people learn from life. Don’t shield them from the consequences of what they choose. When we let people face the real-world consequences of the choices they make, they hopefully will learn from them.”
In the end, Mel says the best way to help a struggling person is to what two words:
Let them
Let them struggle.
But then she says, “We can encourage them to do that which is hard. We can support them in discovering their own strengths.”
She goes on, “If you always swoop in and rescue someone, they will start expecting you to do it when life gets hard. But if they see themselves moment by moment, day by day, facing hard and scary things in life, you teach them that they are capable of doing things that are difficult. You say to them, ‘I believe in you. You can do this.’”
Let’s see what Jesus did with this man who was sick and unable to walk for 38 years.
Jesus did not give the man anything. Jesus did not even touch the man. Jesus simply said, “Pick up your mat and walk.”
In other words, Jesus encouraged this man’s independence, “You can do this. You can walk. I believe in you.”
And he did. He picked up his own mat and started walking. After all those years, he found the strength within himself to pick up his own mat and walk.
The Monday following my drug deal on Saturday night I went up the hill to talk to the person at the Henderson Settlement who was in charge of helping people in the community. Frankie Blackburn told me,
“Mike, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Someone in our community should not have taken advantage of you like that. I’ll make sure to talk to her. But let me tell you something about the best way to help these people.
I will be assisting some of these people with their practical and financial problems in a way that best promotes their independence and strength.
But I want you to support these people with your prayers and encouragement. They need a pastor who will help them find an inner strength from God.
But please do not give them money. That’s not going to help anyone. It will only exacerbate or enable their continued poverty and drug problems.
Please do pray for them and encourage them and support them with your words.”
That was what Frankie told me that day. That’s what I practiced during my five years living with those struggling persons of Appalachia.
It leads us to the question: How do we best help our struggling family member, especially the one who is asking us for money?
I think it’s best to follow the lead of Frankie and Mel Robbins and Jesus: Don’t give them the money.
Instead, we can encourage them and pray for them. We can point them to their own inner divine strength and wisdom. This might mean pain for them in the short run, but health and wholeness for them in the long run.
One way we can pray for them is through our service of Anointing for Healing. From time to time, we follow the example of the early church and anoint for healing. This is a time for you to be anointed with the healing balm on your forehead for something you’re dealing with or for a friend or family member.
This healing prayer could be for physical healing or it could be for other types of healing. Today, it could be for a family member who is struggling financially or with some type of addiction or in some other way. Instead of enabling them, we can pray for them.
If you’re interested in this anointing for healing and this prayer, you can raise your hand. I’ll ask you for who or what you’d like pray for.
Let’s pray (use the book)
Let’s sing “There is a Balm in Gilead” #553
(While we sing the hymn, if you’d like to be anointed for healing, raise your hand and I will come over and anoint your forehead with oil and pray with you. You can pray for a specific concern for yourself or for another.)
(after going around) Let’s pray: Loving God, we are thankful for your healing presence with us today. Heal us. Heal our loved ones. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now, let’s hear some special music fr
