I was standing to the left of Leah's chair. The problem was that I was also looking to my left, and I did not see Leah offer her hand to me. It turned into something amusing. I help Leah up, carry things for her, open doors for her, and such, quite often. I love her and enjoy helping her and trying to make sure she knows that I care for her, value her, want her to feel special and help her when she needs it. If she had really needed help getting up, she would have asked. Instead of lowering her hand and not waiting for help when she noticed I wasn't looking, she would have said something to get my attention. She knew my not taking her hand right away and helping her up was not a sign that I didn't love and care for her, nor a sign that I wouldn't or didn't want to help. She decided the help would have been nice, but that it was unnecessary. She could do it herself, and knowing how I love to be of service to her, she joking said that I missed the chance to serve. I joked back that she missed the chance to be served and to be helped. Mom told us to be nice, and we were all laughing.
But it occurred to me that all too often this happens with us and God, only then, it isn't as cute or amusing. It's sad, and it really is a missed opportunity for us to experience the love and care of Daddy. And for Him to be able to express His love for us. The love of people is fragile and flawed, unlike the perfect love of Abba. Still, sometimes it feels more tangible. We pursue relationship with Him, but sometimes we don't really feel His presence. Sometimes we are so like a toddler with our Daddy that we don't understand why He is refusing to let us eat the piece of candy lying in the dog poop, covered with ants. We want the candy, and Daddy says no. He's mean, or He doesn't love us and care for us.
When we reach out and cry out to Jesus, He hears and has compassion. The Holy Spirit knows our need before we ask. Daddy loves us and is always a good Father. But we doubt all of those statements at times. Add to that doubt a tendency to desire independence over the total dependence and reliance on God, and you have a recipe for misery. We reach out for help from God, and in about half a spiritual second, we have decided that God isn't looking, hasn't noticed us and isn't going to. We reevaluate and decide to do it ourselves. We don't like that we need God's help in the first place. It would have been nice, but it's not necessary. Besides God helps those who help themselves, and if I get part way up and can't complete rising, maybe then God will be forced to help me before I fall. It may not be such a conscious attempt to manipulate and force God's hand, but I believe there is an element of that at times.
It's like a child yelling Daddy help me swing! The father says, just a minute, and I will help you. But the child doesn't want to wait and starts trying to swing by himself. He falls from the swing and breaks an arm. As his father is carrying him to the hospital, he complains to his father that he wouldn't have gotten hurt if he had been helped like he asked. Seriously? If he had just waited a minute, like his father said, he wouldn't have gotten hurt either. If I had been the father...never mind. Yet another reason it is a good thing that I am not God.
The plain simple point is this, from the greatest to the least, from Abraham the father of faith to Dalyn Woodard and all the rest of us, when we do it ourselves, in our way and in our time, it gets messed up. Sometimes badly.Abraham wound up with Ishmael before Isaac, and thousands of years later these two brothers are still trying to kill each other in the Middle East. Maybe it's not that big of a mess. Maybe all that happens is that we get up on our own, and it is a little more difficult. But don't you see, Dear Reader? The latter is actually, in some ways, worse than the huge messes!
We do it ourselves, and the wheels fall off. Oops, well, that didn't work. I guess I should've waited on Daddy. Maybe asked again. Maybe this mess is why He wouldn't help me do it. But the other, when it doesn't go horribly wrong, gives us a false sense of independence, and worse, a false understanding of dependence on God. We begin to believe that God only helps when we're in a huge mess or too much pain or danger to make it, or worse that we can't depend on Him at all because we never know if He's going to help us or not. Maybe He doesn't even really care about what we're going through. Or maybe we don't deserve His help. We need to do better. Make Him proud of us and like us so that He'll pay us attention and render aid. Maybe we're on our own down here more than not after all.
No, that's all bogus. You could fertilize your spring garden with it if it had any substance. First of all, God doesn't help those who help themselves. God helps those in need. And we all need Him. And just because you don't get the poopy ant covered candy the second you reach for it, doesn't mean God doesn't care. It means He cares and understands your needs better than you do. And just because He doesn't jump through our hoops and give us what we want, the way we want it, the moment we want it, doesn't mean He's a bad father. We all know letting your two-year-old run the show like that is a bad idea, bad parenting, and that the kid will grow into a monster. Daddy is raising us to be like Jesus. He is not trying to prove His love by making us god. Jesus came to serve us, but not to make us His master. His service is out of love, not duty, and Father really does know best.
So let us pray to learn to not pull our hand back so quickly. Let us not decide He's ignoring us or too busy for our little problems or doesn't care before we even give Him a chance. And if it does begin to seem like we're not getting the candy, let's give Him a chance to teach us about poopy ants and His desire that we have something better.
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