Hello brothers and sisters in Christ.
Many people today seek self-help (or self development) books. If you go into a library, you'll see a whole section reserved for this type of literature.
These books help to solve a problem in the reader's life or they claim to. Their titles are like "How to win friends", "How to strongly influence people", "How to become wealthy fast", "How to change anything"...
And many other things. This type of literature presents us a few problems:
Problem #1: You become your own Savior; you start thinking that you're the 'god' of our life.
Some self-help books tells you that the solution for your well-being is to always be positive and avoid always negativism. If you start thinking that you can solve, get out or avoid life's problems
through the means of positive thinking or allying yourself with 'positive cosmic forces', you'll automatically ask yourself "Why do we need God, really?".
These books teach us that every solution to any problem is within us, within our own power or strength, within our essence. They teach that the reason we struggle is because of a 'defect' within ourselves,
hence we have to make a huge effort, use all of our own strength to revert and eliminate that struggle or the negative feeling. "You need to be positive at all times", they teach,
"Eliminate, avoid all negativism; don't doubt, don't think negatively, avoid all people (even family members) that are 'negative' people".
You start creating a 'bubble' around you, you start living within this 'positivism bubble'.
If we start thinking that positivism is the only solution to tackle every problem, why do we need God, right? We become our own Savior, we're like gods.
You can't positively think your way out of sin. The biggest problem we have in life is not negative thinking, it's a sin problem. The real problem is the enemy, the Devil.
Sin separates us from God, we loose communion with Him, and because of this, the only way to bridge that gap is to go to Jesus who is our Savior, ask for His mercy and forgiveness, then receive the necessary graces to face all your problems.
Problem #2: You start to think that life is all about you.
All these books have a general theme of you do this, and you get exactly what you want. Folks, life is not about us, it's about God, the others.
If you love God, you have to love everyone. Scripture says, "But if we say we love God and don't love each other, we are liars." (1 John 4:20)
Our focus in life is on Heaven, on our heavenly Father; from this, our heart has to be open for everyone we encounter, open to say a word that leads others to God.
Our focus in life is not just our desires. Sometimes we have desires that aren't that great. Sometimes we ask God to grant us these type of wishes.
"Lord, grant me that I win the lottery this week", "Lord, please get rid of this person out of my life"...
Sometimes within our prayers there are the sins of avarice, pride, hatred...
Some self-help books proposes us something that is actually a trick. Some teach the following to us: "You can get everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want in life."
It's sounds good, right? It sounds charitable. It's encourage us to help the others. But at the end of the day, the base-line is that you'll gain something from this. Again, it's all about you.
It's a selfish life. You're just exercising false charity. True charity is the total giving of oneself without expecting nothing in return.
The book say to help other but it's for your own personal gain, it's beneficial to you, you'll get your goals. It's like this: "Ah, I have this problem in my life right now, I better work hard towards others so that, in return, by some kinda 'power' or 'karma', my problem will disappear."
Folks, this is false charity!
Imagine dying (I know, many of us don't like to think about death, our end on the face of the earth)...
But, seriously, imagine dying, rising to heaven, standing before Jesus at the pearly gates and He asks you, "Well, how did it go?" and you reply, "Oh Jesus, you know, I got everything I wanted in life by using people."
Can you imagine such a scenario, such a dialogue with God?
Using people is totally opposite of Jesus. He didn't come to earth to be served, but to serve. He served other people to gain anything; He did it to glorify God.
The book's proposal and Jesus' proposal sounds like the same and good message but the intention is totally different.
Problem #3: Self-help books never mention or ask the question "What does God want?" or "What does God want from me, of my life?"
These books don't usually point us to ponder this reality. God or the idea of God is completely out of the picture. Sometimes, the solution of our problems is within our God given talents and gifts.
At the end of the day, it's all about trust in God, in risking in the Lord. Don't let your problems destroy you. Suffering is part of the human life.
We sometimes encounter positive things, sometimes negative things; we need to know how to deal with everything, how to embrace everything, good or bad.
Don't create 'bubbles', don't live within a 'bubble'.
With true discernment, with a Christian spirit, you see everything as providential. We should look at our gifts and talents and ask ourselves, "how can I glorify God with my life?"
We Christians should be able to radiate God's light, existence, love and mercy. The others should notice that in us, they should come to believe that God is real and is a Father.
To be clear, I'm not saying that Catholics are forbidden to read self-help books. All I'm saying is that, in order to read this kind of literature, you need a lot of discernment to spot the errors and dangers.
Some of these books is packed with New Age stuff, like "The Power of Now", "The Law of Attraction and Positivism". They teach that you're totally in control of everything, you're the god of your life.
They make you admit that God is not real or, even if He's real, you don't need Him anyways. If you, fellow Catholic, read a lot of self-help books, why don't you try to pray more, fast,
read Scripture, encyclicals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the live of the saints instead? Their lives are very inspirational.
All of this -- also the Sacraments -- give us strength. If you need extra help, seek a good priest. Don't be afraid to resort to one. So many things we can resort to so we can face our problems with strength.
Ultimately, God is the real source of wisdom and strength for us. If something doesn't resolve, you can ask God for perseverance. No problem should be able to destroy us if we cling to Him.
A true Christian stands firm with the Lord in the face of problems. I hope this video gave you some enlightenment regarding self-help resources. Maybe from today onwards, you'll notice in bookstores or library the self-help section.
Now you're aware of the dangers and you can share this information with others so they don't fall into the traps these books can make them think of life and of themselves. See you next week, God willing.
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