Friday morning I got up, tucked my laces into my running shoes, and set them against the wall. I was tired. I woke up to some unusually strong thoughts of unfinished tasks, my shortcomings, and my recurring weaknesses. What’s wrong in the world and in myself just hits harder some days more than others. I looked around to see messes that needed cleaning, and I closed my eyes to think about souls that need mending. I sighed, “God, I need help.”
‘Help’ is such a general word. As a writer, I then cringed inwardly at how generic my statement was – how I wasn’t specific enough as to what type of help and for what I was requesting help. I mean, I don’t need help in every single area, right? Just some … but I silenced that narrative because God knows we all need more help than we ask for.
On the way to work, I turned on a devotional and heard the first lines: “Do you need help? I do. Where do you look for help?” Such basic questions, but they drew me in because of their timeliness, and I read through hungrily. I already knew the answer throughout the devotional was going to be God, plain and simple, but as I read, I asked myself, “Do I think of God as Helper?” Honestly, that’s not the first descriptor that comes to my mind.
At work I reviewed an article I recently wrote about the biblical Hebrew words for help / helper (starting in Genesis 2:18 where God creates a ‘helper’ for Adam). While proofing my work for mistakes and comparing the edited to the original, it struck me: Isn’t this what I asked God for this morning? His help? In researching for the article, I found that throughout the Old Testament, God uses the term ‘helper’ for himself. Biblical writers used the verb ‘help’ primarily for divine assistance, such as when God overcame His people’s enemies, and also for personal assistance, such as in Psalms, when David invokes God to help not only himself but the fatherless, the sick, and the oppressed.
The devotional included Isaiah 64:4—“For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (NLT) That verse doesn’t contain the word ‘help,’ but I think it’s a good picture of the help God brings. The devotional continued: “Think of God as a worker in your life. Yes, it is amazing. We are prone to think of ourselves as works in God’s life. But the Bible wants us first to be amazed that God is a worker in our lives.” This is not to strip God of His sovereignty, for He is so much more than a worker. But do our definitions of and experiences with God show Him as worker and as helper?
Think about it: the overarching story of Scripture is that Jesus came to help us, is it not? ‘Help’ in a profound sense, but help nonetheless. Why would we ever hesitate to ask for help, then?
I love living in an age when it’s increasingly okay to say, “I’m not okay,” when there’s a growing admittance that we don’t need to fake like we have it all together because we are all broken in different ways. [Read: we all need help.] I am grateful for the sources of help that our culture is making increasingly prominent: strong support systems and counselors and books and nature and self-care and scientific and medical advances and more. But what’s our knee-jerk reaction when we need help? Where do we turn? To personality assessments and Instagram accounts and devotional readings and topical books and empathetic friends and journaling and…these are all good, but do we forget to draw help from the Helper? Do we include Him in our quest for wholeness? What I am not saying through this is that these other sources of help do not matter; of course they do. Can we reframe our thinking on the many sources of help as gifts from Him, and thank Him accordingly for the places and people who are His arms and feet extended? Every good thing is from him. Every good help.
At home that night, I got out of bed with my phone light to guide me, and the light fell across a door where Mark’s dad taped a Bible verse years ago. It’s been there for so long that I treat it as part of the door and don’t notice it often, but that night it was one of the few things I could see in the darkness: it is Isaiah 64:4. The very same verse which I’d mulled over all day. I clumsily snapped a photo and then stood there thinking about how many ways God communicated to me in one day that He is our Helper. I don’t think He could have been clearer.
Borrowing from the devotional entry, “The gospel is not a ‘help wanted’ sign. It is a ‘help available’ sign.”
So whether you say it or sigh it or think it or shout it, ask for help today, knowing that God works for those who wait for Him. God works for YOU as you wait for Him. And that’s real help.
Photo: our door with the Bible verse Dad taped to it.