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by Rick Thomas (Author)
Helping others is rarely as simple as giving advice or sharing Scripture. Many well-intended helpers enter conversations eager to fix problems, offer answers, or relieve discomfort-only to find their efforts fall flat or even cause harm. Before You Help Them calls helpers to pause, examine themselves, and prepare their hearts before stepping into another person's life.
This book confronts a foundational but often overlooked truth: you bring yourself into every helping relationship. Your theology, motives, fears, expectations, and unresolved struggles shape how you listen, speak, and respond. Without self-awareness and humility, even biblical truth can be misapplied.
Rick Thomas challenges readers to consider not just what they say when helping others, but why they say it. Are you driven by love for God and people-or by a need to be needed, affirmed, successful, or right? Do you listen patiently, or rush toward solutions to ease your own discomfort? These questions matter because they determine whether help is redemptive or controlling.
Before You Help Them provides a biblical framework for preparing the heart of the helper. It explains how fear of man, self-righteousness, pride, impatience, and self-reliance quietly undermine care. Readers learn why listening is often more important than speaking, why understanding must precede instruction, and why change cannot be forced.
A central emphasis of the book is the helper's dependence on God. Effective care flows from a posture of humility, prayer, and Spirit-dependence-not from confidence in technique or experience. When helpers understand their own need for grace, they are better equipped to extend grace to others.
The book also clarifies the difference between helping and fixing. Helping walks with people; fixing manages outcomes. Helping invites repentance and faith; fixing applies pressure. This distinction reshapes counseling, discipleship, parenting, and leadership relationships.
This resource is especially valuable for counselors, pastors, small-group leaders, disciplers, parents, and anyone regularly involved in spiritual care. It is also helpful for those who feel discouraged or ineffective in helping roles and want to grow in wisdom, patience, and biblical clarity.
Before You Help Them does not diminish the importance of truth. It strengthens it by putting truth in the hands of humble servants rather than anxious problem-solvers. When helpers tend to their own hearts first, care becomes more relational, more discerning, and more fruitful.
This book equips readers to help others wisely-by starting with themselves, submitting to God's work, and trusting Him with the outcome.
Life Over Coffee Publishers
