Anyone would do it.

Today as I was walking to the building we meet as a YWAM group I watched an older gentleman stumble and fall to the ground. Face first as there was nothing he could do to stop himself. I rushed over to help him up and to make sure that he hadn't injured himself. He slowly got up holding onto my arm and then thanked me as I briefly looked over his face for cuts. 

We both went on our days.

My first thought was anyone would have done the same thing in my position, I didn't do anything special. Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, anyone... They would have all done the same thing. Maybe the only difference is I prayed for that man as I walked away that he would remain safe and get home. 

So my first thought is "what makes me different?'


This led me to keep thinking and it is so clear that anyone in my position would have helped that man, anyone. 

Why? 

Why do we feel like we should help him? We don't know him, he is just a random person. He isn't going to reward us or marry us off to his gran-daughter. What is inside us, all of us, that causes us to want to help that man?


CS. Lewis calls it the Law of Human Nature. We have installed in us from the day we were born that there is a real right and a wrong way of doing things.

Why is that inside of us? How did it get there? Why does everyone around the world, whatever background, whatever stage of life, however they were brought up, know that it is Right to help that man up?

Why?
 


I'm going to end with a quote from CS. Lewis' book "Mere Christianity":

These, then are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.