I wrote this blog post almost 5 years ago and never posted it. I have no idea why! Because it’s very good 🙂 Something to think about this Monday morning.
One of my kids has this habit. He gets frustrated easily, and rather than ask for help, he grumbles. He mutters under his breath, just out of earshot. It escalates into crying and hysterics, utter desperation and frustration, statements of “why doesn’t anything go my way?” with an occasional audible declaration of “No one is helping me!!!!!”
A few weeks ago, I sat him down and explained that if he needed something, he needed to come up to his dad or me, make eye contact and say, “Can you help me with something?” Otherwise, from this point forward, I would no longer be rushing in to rescue him unless he actually asked for help. Up to this point, I had repeatedly helped him by giving him a script of “Can you please help me?” He knew the words to say, but it seemed difficult for him to choose to use the script.
He’s learning. Now, he is more apt to yell in his frustration, “CAN SOMEBODY PULEEEESE HELP ME????”
Progress, not perfection 🙂
(That’s another joke in our home. My other son is always asking for “somebody”‘s help. “Can somebody get me a piece of toast?” to which my husband and I jokingly reply, “Somebody! Where are you, somebody???”)
Today I realized I do this with God.
I get all frustrated with a recurring trial or situation. I feel sad that the struggle is on-going and unresolved and difficult and seemingly insurmountable. It takes me way too long to realize that I haven’t actually verbalized that I would like God’s help.
Ouch.
So, that’s what I did. I asked for God’s help, and while He has yet to swoop in and rescue me, solving all my problems with a neat, little bow, He did do a little something that made His presence known, reminding me that He is still interested in being involved in even the smallest detail of my life.
Thanks, God.
“This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.'” Isaiah 30:15
Why do we struggle to receive what God has for us? To ask for all He might have to offer us?
Related posts:
You Have Not Because You Ask Not
Eeyore Complex: Pooping on God’s Plan