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{"id":6552,"date":"2012-12-05T15:01:48","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T19:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=6552"},"modified":"2012-12-05T15:01:48","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T19:01:48","slug":"advent-post-stop-blowing-those-charity-bubbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2012\/12\/advent-post-stop-blowing-those-charity-bubbles.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent post: Stop blowing those charity bubbles!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There are two points to make here. One is that Advent is a good time to ask yourself about times when you\u2019ve tried to be useful, helpful, or loving toward others, and it kind of collapsed out from under you or didn\u2019t work the way you\u2019d hoped. Was some of that your fault? If you notice a pattern like this, you can use this season to try to acknowledge it, repent of it, and change your behavior.<\/p>\n

The second point is that charity isn\u2019t necessarily about making people feel better. It isn\u2019t a form of people-pleasing. There are several reasons I tend toward overpromising and one of them is that I really<\/em> want people to feel better in the short term. I want them to have hope. But giving and then snatching away hope is the strategy used by the researchers in this update of the marshmallow test<\/a>\u2026 and you can see how it would be hugely damaging to people\u2019s sense of trust and ability to persevere in the face of challenges.<\/p>\n

I tend toward a fix-it mentality, the stereotypical \u201cguy\u201d thing where the girlfriend will pour out her sorrows and he\u2019ll suggest that she, like, take a class or go to the gym or do some thing<\/em> which will fix the problem. I\u2019m trying to learn that a lot of the time it\u2019s better to accept that even if the thing does get fixed, I can\u2019t fix it, and I can\u2019t give advice or help with fixing it. What I can do, and what is often pretty intensely needed and desired, is listen.<\/p>\n

Here is Scaffold<\/a> with your post title. (Not endorsing that guy\u2019s YouTube channel, just the song.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"