When Do You Ask for Help?

There is a paradox I see again and again in church circles.

We believe in prayer. We believe in community. We believe that God meets us in our weaknesses.

And yet we are enormously bad at saying those three words: "I'm struggling."

Elijah was tired. Burned out. Completely spent. And God did not say: "Pull yourself together."

He said: "Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you."

Notice that. God did not say: "You can handle it." He acknowledged that it was too heavy. And he sent help.

But when God afterward gave Elijah a new assignment, he didn't say: go alone. He sent him off to find Elisha and take him along.

Even the great prophet was told: you need someone by your side.

Paul openly listed his weaknesses. Imprisonments. Floggings. Shipwrecks. Hunger. Cold. And on top of it all: "Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches."

A man who took the world by storm, and who admitted that it was hard.

His theology: "When I am powerless, then I am strong." Strength is not made complete in spite of weakness. It is made complete in the weakness.

There is a scene in 1 Kings 17 that always grips me.

Elijah has received his assignment. He follows God's instruction. The ravens bring him food. The brook gives him water. Everything is as it should be.

And then the brook dries up.

Not because Elijah had failed. Not as a punishment. But because God had something new for him, and the new road began where the old one ended.

Sometimes that is exactly what happens when we run out of strength. Not a failure, but a turning point. Maybe God is about to send us somewhere else.

It's the opposite of what we usually think.

We imagine we have to get it under control before we ask for help. That we have to try everything ourselves first.

But Bartimaeus was blind and cried out from the roadside. Not a well-crafted prayer, just a cry: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

And Jesus stopped.

To ask for help, from another person, a pastor, or a psychologist, is not a sign that your faith is too small.

It is faith in practice.

It is acknowledging that we were not made to carry everything ourselves. That God has placed other people in our lives as carriers of his grace. Help does not always come straight from heaven, but sometimes from a therapist sitting across from you, listening for an hour.

"Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." It is an invitation to lay the burden down and let God decide which carrier he sends.

What is it that makes it hard to say you're not doing well?

Is it the fear of disappointing? Of seeming weak? Of being a burden to others?

Asking for help takes more courage than going it alone.