However it can also be frustrating to deal with when they clearly can’t do it yet without our help, and yet they cop an attitude and still do not want our help, even when we offer it.
Thinking back as I was growing up, there may have been an equal number of speeches telling me I need to take more responsibility, and also how families sacrifice to help each other, no matter what, because “that’s what families do.”
Those messages conflict only if they are both not fully understood.
My responsibility is to help my family, but my family’s responsibility is to help me.
One message without the other is not as good as both, because ‘helping out is a two way street’ in a healthy family.
One way streets need to eventually close if they can’t change into a 2 way street.
As much as this all makes sense as a parent, do I resist my Heavenly Father the same way, when He tries to help me do things I think already know how to do?
Like children, it’s easy for us to let God help with things we can’t do on our own, but it’s tougher to let go of things we think we CAN do, and re-learn how to do it His Way instead of the way we’ve been doing it.
The Bible is packed with stories about this, the first one that comes to mind is when Jesus told fisherman how to fish, and the results were dramatic!
They caught nothing while toiling all night doing it their way.
But after obeying Jesus’ seemingly irrational advice to cast their nets on the other side–the nets started breaking from so many fish and they had to call for other boats to come help! (Luke 5)
Another example in 1 Sam 16 is when God told Samuel to stop belly-aching over how bad a king Saul was, and to prepare to anoint another king, because God was going to help him pick the next one.
Samuel could have said he already knows how to anoint kings, and doesn’t need God’s help like little kids do sometimes.
But at first Samuel was more worried about his personal safety, then the future king of Israel!
Samuel shrunk back in fear at first, because he was afraid Saul would kill him.
Regardless God offered to show him how to do what he ‘already knew how to do,’ and Samuel took Him up on it, stopped complaining how bad things were, and stepped out to be obedient.
It’s interesting that Saul was the Brad Pitt of his day, an obvious first choice of the people!
However, David wasn’t even chosen by his dad to come in from the field the first time after Samuel asked him to bring in all his sons.
Samuel intently listened for The Lord to tell him His Choice.
He had had enough of the People’s Choice.
When Samuel earnestly enquired of the Lord for all the sons standing in front of him, and none of them seemed right, Samuel was perplexed.
He could have just branched out and selected one on His own because people were watching him.
But He was no longer intimidated by others…he wanted to do this God’s way.
He prayed for The Lord to tell him how to proceed.
He had to finally ask Jesse the Dad, “Are these ALL your sons?”
When young David came in from the field, the “Geiger Counter” of God’s anointing Samuel was listening for in the other sons suddenly went crazy.
David was God’s Choice.
In the 13 YEARS to follow, Samuel had to KEEP enquiring of The Lord for the “How To,” even though Samuel knew the steps of anointing someone King.
Just because we may know how to do something doesn’t mean we don’t desperately need The Lord’s help!
Children often push away their parents to show them how grown up they think they are, let’s not be that kind of child to The Lord!
One of the biggest keys to the many victories David won through his life in the years that followed was that he regularly enquired of the Lord for the “how to”… even in things he was skilled at.
Most of the times, he didn’t assume he knew how to do it, or have a need to prove he could do something.
He wasn’t perfect though.
There were times David did try to do it all on his own without remembering to seek The Lord’s counsel, and the lessons he learned were hard, because the results were disastrous.
The ultimate “how to” enquiry example was from Jesus himself.
There were regular breaks in His ministry when He often went away to pray about things.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, we can actually listen in to hear Him ask if there was another way than the cross, but once God’s way was clear, he embraced it.
There is a way to do things that may seem right to us, but a mature Child of God enquires of God for the “how to” and the help to fulfill God’s perfect will.
I wonder how many things would be different in our lives if we enquired of The Lord more than we do?
We all have fallen short in our past, but our future right now is perfect like a fresh snow fall.
Let’s enquire of Him for His help to fulfill ALL He called us to be and to do, with the days we have left on this earth!
We still need His “how to!”
Lets approach all the situations in our lives, by first asking “Lord, tell me how…”
