HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 25, 2026 –As bornagain believers, we sometimes can’t help ourselves from helping. But God doesn’t always want us to help. Sometimes our desire to help gets in the way of God’s justice. This is a hard spiritual truth that most of us had to learn the hard way. Peter learned it the hard way when he declared that he’d die rather than let Jesus be killed, and Jesus called him Satan for his efforts. We definitely don’t want to be called Satan by Jesus. And we definitely don’t want to get in the way of God’s justice.

There are many reasons why God shut Noah and his family into the ark. It wasn’t just because it was time for them to be shut in. It wasn’t just because God didn’t want them to be traumatized by witnessing the flood. And it wasn’t just because God didn’t want them to try to rescue those who were not supposed to be rescued. But this last reason—preventing Noah and his family from rescuing those who were not meant to be rescued—is likely the main one. Because after they were shut into the ark and the waters were unleashed, Noah and his family would have heard the terrified screams of people crying out for help; they would have heard people pounding on the side of the ark, begging to be let in; they would have heard the pitiable and haunting moans of children and animals just before they drowned. They would have heard all these things, and being the kind souls they were, Noah and his family have wanted to help. (I would wager that Noah’s wife would especially have wanted to help). But God didn’t want them to help, so he not only shut them into the ark before the waters rose, he supernaturally sealed the door so that they couldn’t leave, so that they couldn’t try to help the unhelpable.

The ark’s design also prevented anyone from scaling the vessel to gain unlawful entry.

(God thinks of everything!)

In the past, I have been guilty of attempting to help the unhelpable. Of course, my efforts failed spectacularly, which is a very painful way to learn what must be learned. So now when I see people who look like they could use some help, I ask God first whether or not I should help, and if God says “Yes”, I do, but if God says “No”, I don’t. I don’t quibble and I don’t argue. I don’t try to wheel and deal. I accept God’s word as final and get on with my day.

When people choose evil and earn the rewards of their choice, you not only have to respect their right to choose, you also have to respect their due reward for having chosen evil. You especially have to respect their due reward, because if you don’t respect it and try to override it with misdirected “help”, you’ll learn the hard way that you should not have tried to interfere with God’s justice. The people you’re trying to help will not be helped in any real way, and you’ll suffer the consequences of going against God. In so doing, you’ll essentially become the “Satan” that Jesus accused Peter of being.

Helping people can be a spiritual minefield. The only way to safely negotiate it is to ask God’s guidance whenever you feel the urge to lend a helping hand. Not everyone is on God’s list to be helped, and not everyone is on God’s list to be helped by you. You can learn this the hard way (not recommended), or you can save yourself the suffering and wait for God’s go-ahead.

In this, as in everything else, be like Jesus, who only ever did what God showed him to do. Many people today are beyond our help and many more are trending that way. We need to respect people’s right to choose evil, if that’s what they want, just as we’re to respect their due rewards for having chosen evil.

You can’t pray away God’s justice. Pray instead for God’s guidance and for God’s will to be done.