I heard about a woman telling her friends about the value of a first-aid class she had completed. ‘Just yesterday, she said, ‘I was driving down the main street when I heard this awful crash. I slammed on the brakes, ran back and found a car wrapped round a power pole. When I got to the driver and saw the state he was in my knees went limp and I didn’t know what to do. But then I remembered what they had taught me in the first-aid class. Immediately I bent down and put my head between my knees, and it worked! I didn’t faint!’
Well, clearly, she had missed the whole point of what first-aid training is for. It’s supposed to help us help people who are injured. Just as the value of true religious faith is not just in the comfort it brings to us, but in the comfort it enables us to bring to others.