HELP?! It's not what you think.

As I was reading this morning, I came across this very interesting comment:

..........for the word "help" is inapplicable
where we ourselves do nothing...............

After reading it a few times over, I was caught up in the idea, because I realized this is something I've never thought of before. For me, it came to be about questioning what am I actually asking for when I ask for help? It didnt take me long to discover that probably a good 70% of the time, when I ask for help, or pray for help, I'm really asking if someone else will do something for me, not with me. For example - my trip to Uganda - I am asking people to help send me on this trip. This is accurate because I am paying for some of the trip and am asking others to make financial donations. It would be relatively inaccurate to ask people to help send me if I were relying solely on the donations of others - more accurate would be simply asking people to send me, not to help send me.

This most certainly could fall into that category of things that most people dont care about. That category of 'if you're gonna get picky about it, okay fine, sure, that's true... but it doesnt really matter.' And I suppose if it doesnt matter to you, no problem. But I seem to spend a lot of time mulling over the things of this category. And today HELP has been my subject of choice. Because I guess, along the line of prayers - if I keep asking God to help me _______ (fill in the blank) and am angry because He's not helping. He must not be listening. He must not care.
OR.
I dont think He's answering because what I really was asking was for Him to miraculously make something happen. [i.e. "God, help me be patient with my coworkers." Which would mean, God I'm gonna try hard to be patient & if you could help me in this process that would be amazing. Probably more successful if we worked together on this one. Unfortunately, when praying that prayer, I had no intention of trying to be patient. I was actually asking for God to somehow make me unable to be anything but patient with people. Do you see the difference I'm trying to illustrate?]

I think this one has grabbed my attention ... for several reasons. For one - it makes me consider whether I'd ever ask God to do something like miraculously change something (probably not. if i'm being honest. and since God is fully aware of my thoughts anyway, might as well be honest!). So then secondly, it makes me consider what it I'm committing to when I ask for help. And I do go back and forth here... or maybe just try to further clarify.

Take today at work for example. After reading this before work, I prayed that God would help me work hard today because I knew I had stuff I actually needed to get done. And when I was asking God for help, I was making up my mind that YES. I will be intentional about honestly trying my best to work at work & not check my email, or daydream, or write this blog during work! But - I'm not saying I'm committing to work hard b/c what if God doesnt help, well then shoot I'd better work that much harder just in case. No no, that's not it at all. It's what that quote says - the word help is inapplicable when I do nothing.

Obviously I'm still thinking this through, these were just my first thoughts & it made me think so much that I wanted to share the concept with other people & see what other people thought about this. Sooo... what do you think?!

I've Been Waiting for You

It always happens that I feel most thoughtful while I’m at work, when I should be doing other things! I’m laughing because I was just thinking, “Man, I wish I could be doing other things during these hours while my brain is most alert!” - and, of course, we’re at work during these hours for that exact reason - because we should be alert at work! Oh well, it makes me laugh at least. Anyway, I was just spending a few minutes of my lunch break reading the notes from the sweet sleep team in Moldova right now & one of the comments stood out. One of the people at the orphanage said ‘we’ve been waiting for you for a year’. Just a simple statement and yet, there is something so powerful there. Can you imagine if someone said that to you? Imagine someone who’s lost their job in this economy & finally finds employment. They go in their first day and upon greeting their new boss, this person meets them with a huge grin, a firm handshake and says ‘We’ve been waiting for YOU! We’re so glad YOU are here!’ Or imagine going off to college, where you were far away from home and didn’t know a soul and you walk into your tiny dorm room & meet your stranger of a roommate who, upon seeing you come in, jumps up, rushes to meet you with a hug and says, ‘YOU’RE HERE! I’ve been waiting for you!’ Of course, being the Twilight fan I am, my brain jumps to these examples too… When Jasper first encounters Alice and her response is ‘I thought you’d never get here!’ Or when Edward and Bella are in the meadow and he says ‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you.’ Or, if I may be so bold, imagine if it were Christ. One minute you’re so afraid or in pain or whatever emotion you did or did not expect to feel when death is knocking at your door, and suddenly here you are, and the creator of the universe is there to meet you and says ‘I’ve been waiting for you, I’m so glad you’re here!’

Okay, so maybe that would freak you out [too much invasion into your personal space?! Too much imagination for wherever your theology has you?] but I mean, really, think about that! Maybe for some people, that all sounds prideful - to which I guess I’d say when I think about those examples and think if it were me they were talking to, the right reaction would be something along the lines of ‘no way - you’ve been waiting for me?!’ - an awed reaction, a humble reaction, a ‘no, come on now, its just little old me!’ That’s the reaction I’m thinking of, as opposed to a ‘Yeah, that’s right people - ME! You’re lucky I’m here! Gosh, I should’ve kept you waiting longer just so you’d realize how lucky you are now that I’M here!’ (yeah. THAT reaction creeps me out. Runs shivers down my spine.)

But yeah, all that said, I want to be genuinely feel that way about people and events. I want to see a friend I haven’t seen all day, or all week, or all whenever and when they come through the door, I want to drop what I’m doing, run & greet them because I really am glad they’re there! I want to give them a big hug, or smile, or pat on the back (whatever’s appropriate) such as to communicate this! Which brings me to the one other thing said in these blogs that jarred my memory. For the first year and a half while I lived in Nashville, once a week I would listen to Dave Hunt say, ‘You know I heard it said that a person needs at least 8 meaningful touches [insert: hugs, high fives, etc! not just shake hands with a stranger like you’re shaking hands with a robot!) a day to maintain overall well-being’ (or something along those lines). In the sweet sleep blogs, the person said ‘think about how many personal touches like this you receive each day’ - and how the orphans she’s meeting maybe get 8 of these a month, if they’re lucky.

You hear people say things like hugs are good for your soul. Or, when you give someone a hug and they say I needed that!! You know, I think it just might be true - not just a responsive comment, but a genuine we DO need that! I guess that’s to say - to any of you reading this that live near me & see me regularly (whatever that means!), perhaps more hugs are on the way the next time I see you (and hopefully many times to follow) because we probably both need it!

And when it comes to the countdown to the Uganda trip - I absolutely without a doubt cannot wait ‘til this becomes our story. When it’s our time at the orphanages to pour out all the love, all the care, all the compassion - everything that’s in us, everything God’s created us for that, until this moment, hasn’t even had the platform He’s been waiting for to fill in us, spill out of us -- at the same time as, what I might expect would be from the people we’ll meet, will stream into our lives & infiltrate our everything. Yes, I’ll dream about the more, the ideal, the anomaly because I really do believe we were created for more than everything we know and think and can imagine.