Asking for Help

Okay, I'll admit it. I frequently exhibit the stereotypical male trait reluctari requaesta - the unwillingness, if not sheer inability, to ask for help.

To do so is to admit weakness, to show vulnerability. It compromises the competitive edge. It requires you to demonstrate that someone else can do something you can't. How demoralizing is that? Self-sufficiency is a premium asset.

In most instances, the context is innocuous. Asking for directions. Moving furniture. Loading the car. Carrying the groceries or the dry cleaning. Pulling wire for surround-sound speakers. Getting the family's luggage from baggage claim to the car in the airport parking lot.

Looking at its etymology, "reluctant" is not a passive adjective. Its Latin origin means literally "to struggle against." It's not just that men choose not to ask for directions, for example. We struggle against asking for directions.

There comes a point, however, when this asset becomes a liability. After a while, we become desensitized to the warning signs that we're in over our head, and we find ourselves in deep stuff, beyond our ability to manage on our own.

Psalm 18:4-6 describes it like this:

The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave
coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.

We don't know the specifics of the situation surrounding the psalmist, but it sounds pretty dire. The psalmist is in distress, tangled in the cords and snares of a big mess. It's so bad that the psalmist can do nothing but cry to God for help. Ever been in a predicament like that? I have.

The next verses in this psalm demonstrate the extent to which God will go when you cry to God for help. The earth trembles and quakes. Mountain foundations shake. Heavens part. Dark rain clouds and wind. Hailstorms and lightning bolts. Thunder. Shooting arrows. Sea valleys exposed.

Cry to God for help, and God hears my voice. God reaches down and draws me out of the deep stuff.

You know why God goes through all this when I cry to God for help?

Psalm 18:19 says this, "He rescued me because he delighted in me."

Wow! God goes through all this, just because he delights in me. Imagine this - over all the noise, all the distress calls, all the cries for help, God hears my voice.

That's pretty remarkable. There's no one else who will go to this extent when I ask for help. Dark clouds, wind, hailstorms, lightning and thunder - all of these demonstrate God's delight in me.

Maybe I'll stop and ask for help more often.