The Divine Mandate to Help

UV 312/10,000 Amazing principles of the Universe revealed verse by verse
The divine mandate to help
Isa 1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow

This is the Father’s will for His children: that we must do well. He desires that we prosper in spirit,mind and body. He delights in us when we imitate Him in seeking and executing justice as far as it lies with us to alleviate the suffering of the weak, vulnerable, the orphans and the widows.

As Commissioner of the city of Trichy, an old woman came to my office one day. She wanted a sum of money to do a surgery. I extended monetary help to her. Later, the Lord confirmed that “ I have come to in different forms at different times to test you and you have not said no to my requests.” It is not as if the Lord had come in the shape of these different people but when the needy approach us for help it is as if the Lord Himself had sent them to us and we should do what we can within our official and personal capacities to meet their need. What we do to the least of humankind, we do to the Lord.
During a flood in the city of Trichy, I was on a tour by car along with the Collector. At the time, a poor single woman with a little child wailed with anguish pointing to the sheer slush in which she lived. She asked the Collector for help to build a home for her. He said, “ There is no provision for building a house for her.” I gave her an assurance that as part of the Friends of Police we would build a house for her. The local police along with FOP volunteers of the city joined hands and built a house for that poor woman.

When we lend to the poor our voice, our official help, our resources or our time, we lend to the Lord. When we so lend, He will defend us in our hour of trouble. A senior officer sent me a memo questioning the propriety of giving an assurance to the poor woman when it was not part of my job to do so. But I had felt a higher calling from above as I heard her crying out. I gave a fitting reply that the action was done voluntarily out of the good will and efforts of FOP volunteers and that it won widespread appreciation for the police in the city. Even today that little house in an obscure street of Trichy city remains a testament to how the Lord moves us to action beyond the call of duty.

Prateep V Philip