Help

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heaven and earth. ~Psalm 121:1-2

I love my children. As a parent I try to encourage them to be loving, selfless, helpful, and willing to serve others. Every now and again, it seems those 'be helpful' and 'serve others' lessons backfire on me and I silently wish they were't so helpful (does that make me a horrible parent??). Sometimes when my 6 year old and 22 month old daughters try to help me, they just get in the way and makes my job harder. It takes everything in me not to shout "BACK OFF!" Or "I don't need your help." But the always calm, never loose my cool mother that I am (NOT!) always tries to divert their attention elsewhere. For instance, if I'm loading the dishwasher, I know my toddler will want to help (translation: sit on the dishwasher door and take dirty utensils out and put them in the drawer with the clean ones), so if I'm having a sharp-thinking, ahead-of-the-ball kind of day, before I start the dishes, I'll give her the broom and ask her to sweep for me. That usually keeps her busy long enough for me to jam through the dishes and saves us both frustration.

As a child of God, I imagine I must drive my heavenly Father nuts when I try to help Him. In Psalm 121, the Psalmist asks and answers the question, where does his help come from? "My help comes from the Lord, who made the heaven and earth." The Bible doesn't say God's help comes from me. That would be ridiculous, right?

God doesn't need our help. That's been a hard lesson for me to learn. If I see a problem, I have to try to fix it. I'm a bit of a control freak. I like things done my way, in my time. I'm the one who has the gall to say "God, if you would just let me try it this way, I promise it'll work out." Crazy, right? God being the all-knowing God He is will allow me to do things my way, which always results in me running back to Him for help, because I usually make things worse.

Just as I try to divert my kids' attention when they want to help me, I wonder if God does the same thing to us. It wouldn't surprise me if in His infinite wisdom, God gives us "busy work" while He handles the the real stuff...the stuff that's just way out of our league.

God truely is our help. He wants to be our help. We just have to allow Him to help us. It may mean relinquishing some control, but in the end it's so worth it and will save us a lot of trouble. If we do it with God's help the first time, all the time, imagine all the do-overs we'd save ourselves, all the weight that would be lifted from our shoulders, all the support at our disposal. God has all the tools we need. He's given us all the tools we need...we just have to take advantage of them.

I feel so much lighter since I decided to allow God to help me. When turbulance approaches, I'm not as shaken because I'm comforted in knowing that I have God by my side and He'll help me through.

So, during the bleakest hour, when you see no way out, and you've run out of words to pray, I encourage you to fall on your knees, lift your eyes and hands toward heaven and shout, "HELP, GOD, HELP!" He'll already be there at your side, ready to rescue you.