When is the last time you asked someone for help? Can you think of a recent experience in which you asked for help from a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger? Someone who was not being paid to help you, that is? And not a family member or a co-worker; these people are expected to help.
My guess is that we are more likely to be helping others than to be asking for help. Can you think of the last time you helped someone? A friend? A neighbor? A stranger? Does that come to mind easily? Can you think of several examples?
When we help others, we are embodying divine love. We are being “God’s hands.” We are conveying God’s love in deeds. This is one of the ways God loves the world.
Giving and sharing divine love is important. But to give this love someone has to receive it. There has to be someone willing to accept the love. For people to save their lives by serving and find their highest good by living for others, as Christianity teaches, someone has to accept their efforts. When we ask for help and accept support, we are saying “yes” to God’s love. We are receiving what others need to give. We are helping others become whole through other-centered living. We are giving value, worth and dignity to others by receiving their help. When we try to maintain self sufficiency, to tough it out, to cling to rugged individualism, we may be depriving others of the opportunity to serve. It may be a refusal of the love of God waiting to be given to us.
So, just say “yes.” Accept God’s love offered to you through the help of others. This is an affirmation of the interdependence of humanity, of our common human frailty, and of our need to serve.
Prayer: We find our highest good in service. We accept our vulnerability and our need by receiving help from others. For divine love to be shared it needs to be given as well as received. May we be part of that flow. Amen.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 