Abraham Lincoln: Helping a Friend, Not Enabling

I just finished reading Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln and I want to comment on one letter that particularly stood out to me.  It was a letter that Abe Lincoln wrote to John D. Johnston on January 2, 1851.  Abe is responding to a friend in need request.  It appears John needs money, again.  Now most of us at one time or another has been faced with this moral dilemma.  What should you do?  Abe really wants to help.  So he tells his friend what he thinks is the root of his problem.

“You are  not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day.  You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.”

He goes on to tell him to get a job, and that he will match him dollar for dollar what he would earn for the next few months.  This will help him get out of debt and build a good habit that will be good for him and his family. 

This made me think of how we sometimes enable the ones we love by supplying the immediate need, but not addressing the real problem.  In order to really help the ones we care about, we must look at the big picture.  This is not always easy.  But doing the right thing for the right reasons is what really matters.