13 August 2008
Safe Harbor
Are you a Safe Harbor?
People who are hurting need someone who they believe is a safe harbor more than anything else.
How do you know if you are?
If you offer an “answer for everything,” you’re not. People who give pat answers and trite “know-it-all” responses to people’s very real pain only exasperate the problem. They only add to the hurting individual’s feelings of condemnation and inadequacy.
If you are a safe harbor for others then people will sense your compassion and complete reliance upon the Father .
Another way to know?
Do people come to you or are you a repellent to those who are hurting?
I hope you’re a safe harbor.
When people have been battered by the many storms of life it can push them to the brink. At times like those they will be desperate for a safe place.
Are you that place?
2 Comments currently posted.
Steve says:
Kate says:
It is so funny to read this. In the midst of a book I’ve just read (John Bevere’s Driven by Eternity) was this line: “If you really love people, you would tell them the truth, whether they like it or not. You would be more concerned for their welfare to help them, even if it meant their rejection of you.”
It’s been a process, since I tend to be a people pleaser and want acceptance, but I have somehow become a go-to person for people in my life with relationship issues…and there have been many times that I’ve been concerned that I’m going to end a friendship because I didn’t see things the way my friends did about their problems. If people ask you for advice, though, you’re doing them a real disservice to tell them want they WANT to hear rather than what they NEED to hear.
Thank you, Rob. This is so true. I want to be a safe harbor. With the help provided by the Lord not my own reasoning or understanding. I have in my past tried to be a Safe Harbor for others only to find it was just me not with the Lords guidance. I may have made things worse. I’m a fixer. Trying to break that. Alcoholic/violent father etc. that is probably the root of that. I’ll get there!!! Thanks!!!