The Quote
“If you can’t swim never attempt saving a drowning person. Also, if you can swim never attempt saving someone who is thrice your weight.”
— Godwin Delali Adadzie
Context and Inspiration
This quote addresses a profound paradox in helping others: good intentions without adequate capability can transform a helper into an additional victim. The principle applies far beyond literal drowning scenarios—it speaks to emotional support, financial assistance, spiritual guidance, and any situation where someone needs rescue. The wisdom here recognizes that effective help requires honest self-assessment of our own capacity, skills, and limitations. Attempting to help beyond our capability doesn’t demonstrate courage or compassion; it often results in two people needing rescue instead of one. True love for others sometimes means acknowledging what we cannot do and seeking appropriate help rather than rushing in unprepared.
The Drowning Metaphor: Literal and Spiritual Truth
The Physical Reality
Lifeguard training emphasizes a crucial principle: a panicking drowning person is extremely dangerous to rescuers. Here’s why:
The Drowning Instinct:
When someone is drowning, their survival instinct overrides rational thought. They will climb on top of anything that floats—including a rescuer. A drowning person doesn’t think, “I should be careful not to drown my rescuer.” They think only, “I must get air.” This instinctive response causes them to push the rescuer underwater while they climb up.
The Weight Problem:
A person who weighs three times more than their would-be rescuer creates physics problems that good intentions cannot overcome. Even a strong swimmer cannot support someone significantly heavier while also keeping themselves afloat. The result: both drown.
The Trained Response:
Professional lifeguards learn to approach drowning victims with equipment (flotation devices, rescue tubes) and specific techniques that prevent the victim from grabbing them. They’re taught that if a victim does grab them and pull them under, they should dive deeper—the drowning person will release them to go back toward the surface and air.
The Tragic Statistics:
Approximately 10-20% of drowning deaths involve would-be rescuers who die attempting to save someone else. Good hearts don’t overcome physics.
The Spiritual Application
This physical reality illustrates profound spiritual truths:
Not Everyone Can Help Everyone:
Just as not everyone can physically rescue a drowning person, not everyone can help in every situation. Skills, experience, capacity, and positioning all matter.
Good Intentions Don’t Equal Capability:
Wanting to help doesn’t mean you should help. Love must be combined with wisdom.
Sometimes the Most Loving Thing Is Getting Help:
Recognizing you’re not equipped to rescue someone and calling for those who are equipped is often the wisest and most loving response.
Creating Two Victims Helps No One:
If you attempt a rescue beyond your capability and fail, now two people need help instead of one. This serves no one.
Biblical Principles: Wisdom in Helping
Scripture affirms the principle of knowing your limitations when helping others:
Exodus 18:13-23 (Moses and Jethro)
Moses was attempting to judge all disputes among the Israelites himself. His father-in-law Jethro observed this and said:
“What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone… Select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.”
The lesson: Even Moses, chosen by God and filled with wisdom, couldn’t do everything alone. Recognizing limits and delegating is wise, not weak.
Galatians 6:2-5 (Bearing Burdens)
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ… Each one should test their own actions… for each one should carry their own load.”
The tension: We’re called to help bear others’ burdens (v.2), yet each person must carry their own load (v.5). The Greek uses different words: baros (overwhelming burden) versus phortion (normal load).
The balance: Help with overwhelming crises that exceed someone’s capacity. Don’t enable them by carrying responsibilities they should handle themselves. And know which burdens you personally have the capacity to help carry.
Proverbs 27:12
“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”
The wisdom: Recognizing danger—including the danger of attempting help beyond your capacity—is prudent, not cowardly.
Luke 14:28-30 (Count the Cost)
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.'”
The application: Before committing to help, honestly assess whether you have the resources, skills, and capacity to follow through effectively.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (Different Gifts)
“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”
The reality: God has distributed different gifts to different people. You’re not called to do everything—you’re called to use your particular gifts faithfully. Someone else may be equipped for the help this person needs.
When Helping Hurts: The Dangers of Incompetent Rescue
Let’s examine specific scenarios where help beyond one’s capacity causes harm:
1. Emotional/Mental Health Crises
The Scenario:
A friend is experiencing severe depression, suicidal thoughts, or a mental health crisis. You want to help.
The Limitation:
If you’re not a trained mental health professional, you likely lack the skills to properly address clinical depression, trauma, or psychiatric emergencies.
The Danger:
- You may give harmful advice (“just try to be more positive!”)
- You may miss warning signs that a professional would recognize
- You may become emotionally overwhelmed yourself (vicarious trauma)
- The person may use their relationship with you to avoid professional help (“I’m talking to you, so I don’t need therapy”)
The Wise Response:
Listen with compassion, affirm their worth, and help connect them with qualified professionals—therapists, psychiatrists, crisis counselors. Be a supportive friend while recognizing what you cannot provide.
2. Financial Rescue
The Scenario:
Someone you care about is in financial crisis—facing eviction, unable to buy food, drowning in debt.
The Limitation:
If you’re not financially stable yourself, or if helping would jeopardize your own financial security, you can’t sustainably help.
The Danger:
- You may create your own financial crisis trying to solve theirs
- You may enable poor financial decisions by providing consequences-free bailouts
- You may damage the relationship when they can’t/don’t repay
- You may neglect your own family’s needs in the process
The Wise Response:
Help in ways that don’t jeopardize your own stability: connect them with financial counseling, food banks, job resources, or community assistance programs. Small, sustainable help is better than large, unsustainable rescue.
3. Addiction Intervention
The Scenario:
A family member or friend struggles with addiction. You want to save them.
The Limitation:
Addiction is a complex medical, psychological, and spiritual condition. Without training, you can’t provide adequate intervention or treatment.
The Danger:
- You may enable the addiction by protecting them from consequences
- You may be manipulated into providing resources that fund the addiction
- You may burn out emotionally trying to “fix” something beyond your control
- You may neglect other relationships and responsibilities
The Wise Response:
Educate yourself about addiction, set healthy boundaries, encourage professional treatment, attend Al-Anon or similar support groups, and recognize that you cannot force someone into recovery.
4. Spiritual Direction
The Scenario:
Someone seeks your guidance on complex theological questions, moral dilemmas, or spiritual crises.
The Limitation:
If you lack theological training, pastoral experience, or spiritual maturity, you may provide inadequate or even harmful counsel.
The Danger:
- You may give advice that contradicts Church teaching
- You may oversimplify complex moral questions
- You may assume your experience applies universally
- You may damage someone’s faith by speaking beyond your knowledge
The Wise Response:
Share your own experience humbly, acknowledge the limits of your knowledge, and connect them with priests, spiritual directors, or more knowledgeable mentors for serious questions.
5. Domestic Abuse Situations
The Scenario:
You learn that someone you know is experiencing domestic violence. You want to help them escape.
The Limitation:
Domestic violence situations are extremely dangerous and require specialized intervention strategies.
The Danger:
- You may put yourself at physical risk
- You may inadvertently escalate the danger for the victim
- You may give advice that increases rather than decreases risk
- You may not understand the complex psychological dynamics involved
The Wise Response:
Connect them with domestic violence hotlines, shelters, and professionals trained in safe intervention. Offer emotional support while deferring to experts for safety planning.
Knowing Your Capacity: Self-Assessment Questions
Before attempting to help someone, honestly answer these questions:
1. Do I Have the Necessary Skills?
- Have I been trained in this area?
- Do I have relevant experience?
- Would a professional handle this differently?
- Am I equipped for this specific situation?
2. Do I Have the Emotional Capacity?
- Am I in a healthy place myself?
- Can I handle the emotional weight of this situation?
- Do I have adequate support for myself?
- Will this drain me to the point of ineffectiveness in other areas?
3. Do I Have the Resources?
- Can I help without jeopardizing my own stability?
- Do I have time for sustained involvement?
- Can I follow through long-term if needed?
- What will this cost me (time, money, energy)?
4. Is This My Responsibility?
- Am I the right person for this situation?
- Is there someone better equipped?
- Am I being asked to help, or am I inserting myself?
- Could I be enabling dependence?
5. What Are the Risks?
- What could go wrong?
- Am I prepared for those possibilities?
- Do the potential benefits outweigh the risks?
- What’s my plan if this goes badly?
If you answer “no” or “I’m not sure” to most of these, you should probably seek help rather than attempt rescue yourself.
The Wisdom of Getting Help
Recognizing you can’t help doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means getting the right help:
For Physical Emergencies
Don’t: Jump into water if you can’t swim
Do: Call 911, throw flotation devices, use a reaching pole
For Mental Health Crises
Don’t: Try to be their therapist
Do: Connect them with counselors, crisis hotlines (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or psychiatric professionals
For Financial Crises
Don’t: Drain your savings to solve their problem
Do: Connect them with financial counseling, community resources, job assistance programs
For Addiction
Don’t: Try to manage their recovery yourself
Do: Help them find treatment programs, support groups, and professional intervention
For Spiritual Questions Beyond Your Knowledge
Don’t: Make up answers or speak with false authority
Do: Connect them with knowledgeable clergy, theologians, or spiritual directors
For Abuse Situations
Don’t: Personally confront the abuser or create unsafe rescue plans
Do: Connect them with domestic violence professionals, safe shelters, and trained advocates
When You Should Help Anyway: The Exceptions
Are there times when you should attempt help even if you’re not perfectly equipped? Yes, but these are specific circumstances:
1. Immediate Life-or-Death Situations
If someone will die without immediate intervention and no one else is available, you may need to attempt help even if not ideally equipped. But still within reason—if you can’t swim, you still shouldn’t jump in.
2. When Professional Help Is Unavailable
In some contexts (remote locations, developing nations, crisis situations), professional help isn’t accessible. You do your best with what you have.
3. When You’re the Only Option
Sometimes you’re the only person present or available. Do what you can while seeking additional help.
Even in these cases, recognize your limits and minimize additional risk.
The Temptation of the Savior Complex
Why do people attempt rescue beyond their capacity? Often because of unhealthy psychological patterns:
The Savior Complex
Characteristics:
- Believing you alone can save someone
- Deriving self-worth from being needed
- Boundary issues—difficulty saying no
- Pattern of relationships where you’re always rescuing
The Problem: This isn’t actually about helping others; it’s about meeting your own emotional needs through others’ dependence on you.
The Solution: Develop a healthy sense of self-worth independent of being needed. Learn to help from a place of strength rather than compensating for internal wounds.
Misunderstanding Love
The Misconception: “If I really loved them, I would do anything to help, regardless of cost to myself.”
The Truth: Love includes wisdom. Destroying yourself doesn’t serve anyone. Sustainable help requires sustainable helpers.
Martyrdom vs. Wisdom: True martyrdom gives one’s life for the Gospel, not for enabling dysfunction or attempting help beyond one’s capacity.
Practical Boundaries for Healthy Helping
1. Know Your Limits and Communicate Them
“I care about you, but this situation requires expertise I don’t have. Let me help you find someone who can help effectively.”
2. Help People Access Resources Rather Than Being the Resource
Connect them with professionals, programs, and sustainable support systems rather than making yourself the sole source of help.
3. Set Time and Emotional Boundaries
Decide in advance how much time and energy you can sustainably give. Stick to those boundaries.
4. Don’t Rescue People from Natural Consequences
Experiencing consequences is often what motivates change. Protecting someone from all negative outcomes may prevent their growth.
5. Prioritize Your Primary Responsibilities
Your family, your own health, and your God-given responsibilities take precedence over rescue missions.
6. Accept That You Can’t Save Everyone
This is hard but essential: you will encounter needs you cannot meet. That’s okay. God hasn’t called you to save everyone—He’s called you to be faithful with your specific gifts and calling.
The Greater Rescue: Pointing People to Christ
Ultimately, there’s only one Savior, and it’s not you or me:
We All Need Rescue
The deepest human need isn’t financial stability, emotional health, or physical safety—it’s salvation from sin and reconciliation with God. No human helper can provide this.
Point People to the True Rescuer
Isaiah 43:11: “I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.”
Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
The best help we can offer is introducing people to Jesus Christ, who alone can save completely.
Our Role: Vessels, Not Sources
2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
We’re conduits of God’s grace, not sources of it. Recognizing this keeps us humble and dependent on God rather than operating in our own strength.
Conclusion: Wise Love
“If you can’t swim never attempt saving a drowning person. Also, if you can swim never attempt saving someone who is thrice your weight.”
This isn’t callousness; it’s wisdom. It’s recognizing that effective help requires capability, not just compassion. It’s understanding that you serve no one by becoming a second victim.
Love without wisdom can be destructive. Compassion without competence can make situations worse. Good intentions without honest self-assessment can multiply suffering rather than alleviate it.
So know your limits. Assess your capacity honestly. Help within your capability and get appropriate help when needs exceed your ability. Don’t confuse the call to love with a call to do everything for everyone.
Be a wise helper: equipped, sustainable, and boundaried. Learn to swim before attempting water rescue. Know your strength before attempting heavy lifting. Develop your skills before offering expertise.
And always remember: there’s only one Savior. You’re not Him. And that’s okay. You don’t have to be. Just be faithful with what God has entrusted to you, help where you’re equipped to help, and trust God with the rest.
Reflection Questions
- Have you ever attempted to help beyond your capacity? What was the result?
- In what areas are you tempted to have a “savior complex”—trying to rescue people when you’re not equipped?
- What boundaries do you need to set in your helping relationships?
- Are there situations where you need to step back and connect someone with more qualified help?
- How does trusting that Jesus is the ultimate Savior free you from the pressure to save everyone yourself?
Related Quotes
- “No amount of worry can solve any problem.”
- “Sacrifice something dear for something greater. You will need to make a sacrifice whether it is your free time or something else to get what you need and want. Without sacrifices nothing valuable is achieved.”
- “There are levels of ignorance… Be humble, and learn from those who truly know.”
Want to grow in wisdom about helping others? Explore my books on faith and practical wisdom or read more articles on relationships and boundaries.
