If Things Get Any Worse, I’ll Have to Ask You to Stop Helping!

We bought my mom a T-shirt that reads “If Things Get Any Worse, I’ll Have to Ask You to Stop Helping.”

Some help is like that, isn’t it?

There are times when help is not only not help but has become a hindrance. There is a time to “Step back, ma’am and let the professionals handle things.”

One of the most quoted verses of the Bible, “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t actually in the Bible. That’s right. It isn’t in there. 

Because, as much as we can’t understand this kind of selfless love, we are in a relationship with a God who wants to help us. God is our help. He is a present help in times of trouble. He is a hands-on God.

So, today is gray and rainy where I am and I’m surrounded by a life that has been radically altered since January 1^st with very little input on my part. I am sick with an upper respiratory thing that will pass but right now feels like a marriage to misery incarnate and I’m going into a meeting at work where I expect to hear that even more things are changing in my world. In other words, just now, I am laid very low.

It’s hard for me to see what good God will bring out of this time but I have walked with Him for many years now and know that He will bring good of it. In fact, He thrills to bring good of times just like this.

God is like my mom when she encounters an office that is a terrible mess. She gets all excited because she knows she will be able to bring order and she loves a challenge. He’s like my father, who encounters a terrible fire scene but knows he is up to the task of subduing it and knows he was designed to do just that. He is like my husband, who sees this house that others think should just be burned but he sees what he will be able to create from this neglected space.

So it is with God. He looks at the wreckage of my spirit right now and gets a little excited. I can just hear Him now. “See how low you feel and how awful? See how broken you are and how at the end of yourself? Now, I can really work. Stand back and watch what I will do!”

And I know, that when it gets this bad, I’ve probably “helped” enough for just now. Part of why He throws me into a hammerlock of trials too great for me is because I insist on helping so often and must be incapacitated at times in order to give Him room to work.

 “‘For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice. Ezekiel 34:11-16

 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” John 10:14-18

So, this post is my little white flag of surrender. It is me crying uncle. It is the moment I “let go and let God.” It is me standing back and letting Him work.

I serve a God who is amazing and who is a present help in times of trouble. Help! Is exactly what I need.