Recently I asked a coworker, “How can I make your life easier today?”  This is an easy question for me to ask since I am a volunteer without any specific duties except to help others.  At first she laughed, then she had a few suggestions on things I could do that would be helpful.  About a week later she told me that she had been thinking about that question.  She said it really meant a lot to her that there was someone who was willing to make her life easier instead of giving her a hard time.

I have always wanted to be a person who makes life easier for others instead of giving them a hard time.  I know I haven’t always succeeded at this.  I am especially bad at it when I feel like my life is hard or that others are giving me a hard time.  But that is no excuse.  We are supposed to lift others up, to help them see God, to know what love means.  Too often, however, we bring others down or make them feel inadequate.

In Isaiah 42:16, God makes a promise.  He says, “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

I wrote last week about being lost in darkness, just as these verses say.  And it seems like the corollary to darkness being turned into light is that the rough places become smooth.  They often go together in the Bible.  If God brings light to our darkness, we will not stumble over the rough road.  More than that, if we are sharing the light with others, we will make their lives easier – lifting them up and helping them see God.

How are you doing at making life easier for someone else?  Are you helping them get smoothly over the rough places in life or are you being a person who makes life harder for others?  Maybe you need to ask someone, “How can I make your life easier today?”