An experience
several years ago taught me one of the most unforgettable
lessons about human nature I've ever learned. It taught me an
unforgettable lesson about God also, and about his willingness
to provide for our needs through the help of other people.
It was a late summer
evening, and Nate asked if he could spend the night
with a friend who lived about a half hour's
distance from our home. I agreed to drive my
fourteen-year-old son there.
After
dropping him off, I drove only a short distance
on the way back home when the motor in my Ford
van sputtered, then shut off while the vehicle
was still moving. I couldn't restart the van, so
I let it drift to a stop at the bottom of a hill,
then trudged back to the house to phone for help.
I reached Evie at home, who
agreed to come and pick me up. But after giving
her copious directions to this home, located on a
remote back road north of Mt. Airy, Maryland, she
suddenly gasped and said there was a small
problem: she didn't have a car available. Ben had
borrowed hers that evening, since his VW Bug was
having problems of its own.
Evie told me to sit tight while
she would make some calls on our other phone to
try and locate Ben. She returned a few minutes
later to say that none of Ben's friends knew
where he was. There was good news however: The
father of one of his friends had volunteered to
come for me.
While I was relieved to know that
help was on the way, I was embarrassed to be
inconveniencing this neighbor, Jim, since I
barely knew him and it was already past 11:00
p.m. I knew, too, that this had been a terribly
difficult year for Jim, for his seven-year-old
son had died of a heart problem that past fall. I
felt bad about troubling this man or his family
in any way.
Yet Evie said Jim was already on
his way, so I had no choice but to accept the
favor. I walked out to the street to wait for
him. A fog had settled in so thick that I
couldn't see the house from the road, and I
worried that Jim wouldn't be able to find his way
there. I worried also that by now he was probably
feeling dumped on and regretting he had offered
to help.
When Jim finally arrived, shortly
before midnight, he threw open the passenger door of
his car and greeted me with a warm handshake
and a friendly smile. I thanked him earnestly and
apologized profusely for putting him to this
inconvenience. He insisted he was happy to help,
and his demeanor conveyed that he meant it.
Jim drove me to my car, and I was
surprised to find that I could start it now. He
agreed to follow me as I drove home. We found our
way to Route 27, the country highway connecting
Mt. Airy and Damascus, where I live.
Unfortunately, my engine was starting to lose
power again. Soon it died altogether, just short
of an intersection where I could have turned off
into a parking lot. I was stuck now on the
shoulder of Route 27.
Jim offered his car phone so I
could call for road service. This was no small favor, for it was
1994, and the cost of operating a mobile phone was still
outlandish. Finding a tow truck
this late at night took a while, and I had plenty
of time to chat with Jim. I learned that this man,
whom I knew only as a quiet neighbor, was
president of a large Washington association and
travels constantly. Finding that he had to get up
early for a one-hour commute to work, though,
didn't lessen my embarrassment over taking him
from his home at this hour.
A tow truck finally arrived at
1:00 a.m. Jim and I followed as it hauled my lame
van to the repair shop we frequent in Damascus.
When the driver wouldn't accept a credit card,
Jim handed me $50.00 in cash to pay him. Jim then
drove me home. He seemed as cheerful and alert
when he let me off as when he picked me up, and
showed no hint of resentment that my misfortune
had just robbed him of several hours sleep.
Helping Healed the
Helper
It wasn't until I dropped by his
home the next evening, to give him a gift and to thank him, that I learned the full reason for his
happy benevolence that previous night. Earlier
that evening, he explained, he and his wife had
gone for a walk in their neighborhood. Their
carefree spirit was fractured when a neighbor
asked how they were faring in the wake of their
son's death. A sentimental discussion followed,
and they all reminisced over how much they missed
the boy.
"I came home feeling sorry
for myself," Jim said, "and convinced
life had dealt me a dirty blow. I lost my
bearings for a while. It was while I was
wallowing in discouragement that your wife
phoned. For some reason, hearing that you needed
help broke the spell. And I actually felt like my
son was telling me, 'Go ahead and help
him.'"
Now I don't believe that deceased
persons communicate with the living, and I don't
think Jim meant that he literally heard his boy's
voice (those who are grieving often use language
like this). I'm inclined to think that God was
prompting Jim, in a way that Jim interpreted
through his own filter.
What did
become clear as Jim talked further was that
Evie's call had had a surprisingly redemptive
effect upon him. He didn't want to be feeling
sorry for himself yet was stuck in the inertia of
self-pity. Finding he could do something
constructive to help someone else allowed him to
redirect his energy in a positive direction--a
striking case of what Stephen Covey terms a paradigm shift.
Driving around some fog-drenched country roads
and losing a few hours sleep was a small tradeoff
for regaining his sense of purpose and optimism.
While I feared we had
inconvenienced Jim tremendously, we in fact had
done just the opposite. Evie and I unknowingly
had helped him by letting him know of our need
for help.
The Challenge of Asking
for Help
It was an experience I'll never
forget. At that moment when my car died, I felt
helpless. I wondered if I could find my way back
in the fog to the home where I had left Nate.
When Evie informed me she had no car at her
disposal, I felt as though the bottom had fallen
out of everything. Little did I realize that God
had not only prepared someone to come to my aid,
but that helping me would be a healing experience
for him.
The incident parallels our
broader life experience in so many ways. An
important part of realizing our potential in any
area is learning how to draw on the help God
provides us through other people. Yet too often
we fail to take advantage of the help that is
available and--more often than we
realize--deprive others of a blessing in the
process.
This isn't to deny that we can
lean too heavily on other people's good will. I
recall a man who once arrived in Washington, D.C.
in a ramshackle automobile with condemning Bible
verses painted on all sides. For the next year or
so he lived out of this car, parking in church
lots and streets of northwest Washington. He
depended on the charity of Christians to provide
money and food for him and his several dogs, who
resided in the car with him. He declared
unabashedly that his mission in life was to help
Christians learn to be more generous, by giving
them the opportunity to serve him.
Well . . .
His example is extreme. Yet it
does bring to mind how one's dependence on other
people can become unhealthy--in his case
dysfunctional. Banking on others' help can become
an unwholesome habit, a problem Paul addresses in
2 Thess 3:6-10.
For serious Christians, though,
the problem is more typically the opposite. We
feel uncomfortable asking for others' assistance,
for fear we're not being properly self-reliant.
Simple pride is often at the root of our
squeamishness about asking for help. We don't
like admitting that we need help and are insufficient
to solve a problem on our own.
If we can swallow our pride and
acknowledge our need for help, the fear of
rejection may hold us back from asking for it.
Shyness, or a shell-shocked mentality from past
rejections, can incline us to expect a negative
response even when it's unlikely.
Even if we don't expect to be
turned down, we may still fear being a burden on
someone else. Indeed, the fear of imposing on
others is probably the major reason serious
Christians fail to ask for help.
While the situations in which we
fear asking for help are numerous, some of the
most common include:
 asking
an employer for a raise or an improvement
in our work situation
seeking
a job interview
asking a teacher for special direction
asking a counselor or medical professional for
help
asking a salesperson for advice
asking a friend for a loan
asking a friend to help with a project
asking someone for a date
asking someone for assistance in meeting
someone
we want to ask out
applying to an institution for a loan or grant
making a college application
asking a pastor for spiritual guidance
hiring a professional to handle a project that
we
have no business tackling on our own
The irony is that the people we
fear imposing on in such situations are often
more open to helping us than we suspect. We can never know unless we ask. And sometimes the
results are wonderfully surprising.
God Moves Others to Help Us
In the face of fearing to ask for
help, we should keep two greatly encouraging
factors in mind. One is that the same God who is
working within us is working in the hearts of
others as well. When God moves us to take a step
of faith, he prepares others to help us along the
way. Where he wills our success, he inspires
others to take an interest in our needs.
The second point is that, more
often than we think, we do others a service by
allowing them to help us. The opportunity to
assist us may meet important emotional or
creative needs for someone. It may give that
person a needed sense of being useful. It may
provide him or her a chance for new experience
and personal growth.
Others are often far more eager
to be of help than we assume. In some cases the
opportunity can be life-transforming. This was
clearly the case with Zacchaeus, a revenue
official who encountered Jesus in a crowd in
Jericho (Luke 19:1-9). As a despised chief tax
collector, he had surely lived self-indulgently
to this point. Yet his attitude changed suddenly
when Jesus looked up at him at his observation
post in a sycamore tree and declared,
"Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must
stay at your house today."
Not only was
Zacchaeus thrilled to host Jesus, but the
opportunity awakened a compassionate side in him that undoubtedly had long been repressed.
"Look, Lord!" he announced. "Here
and now I give half of my possessions to the
poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of
anything, I will pay back four times the
amount."
Particularly interesting is
Jesus' assertiveness in telling Zacchaeus of his
need for help. Hosting Jesus in this case was no
small task. It probably involved several meals,
and some of Jesus' disciples likely accompanied
him on the visit. Most of us would feel awkward
even asking a friend to consider inviting us for
dinner. Jesus was comfortable telling
Zacchaeus that he and his party were coming over
for food and lodging. Jesus was able to speak so
straightforwardly to Zacchaeus because he knew he
wasn't imposing on him but doing him a great
favor by giving him this chance to serve.
For Zacchaeus, the change in
outlook was astounding. In an instant the
pleasure of acquiring was transformed into the
joy of giving. It is one of the Bible's most
remarkable descriptions of a paradigm shift.
The message is not that we should
pick up our phone and announce to our neighbor
that we'll be dropping by for Sunday brunch. Yet
Jesus' frankness in sharing his need with
Zacchaeus does help free us from our fear of
imposing on others. We're reminded that asking
for help can sometimes be a genuinely
compassionate move.
Facing the Challenge
Is there a step of faith you
would like to take but are convinced would be too
difficult? Are you facing a problem that seems
to have no clear solution? Look carefully at what
is holding you back from moving forward. In all
honesty, is part of the problem that you feel
awkward asking others for help? Do you fear they
won't want to help you or will be annoyed by your
request?
This may be the time for your
faith to stretch a bit. Remember that the same
God who has saved you also works behind the
scenes in countless ways on your behalf. When he
intends you to succeed, he moves others to want
to help you realize your goal. And so often you
meet needs in their lives by letting them meet
needs in yours.
Pray earnestly, then consider
your options. As God leads, take the perhaps
scary step of asking someone to help you. Move
out in faith, even if it feels like you're living
on the edge. Don't short-circuit the provision
Christ has for you--or the adventure he has in
store for you.
There are times when we think
hope is lost, when in fact help is waiting in the
wings.
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