Always Ready to Help
Do you realize that God wants to help you?
Verse of the Day
‘God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.’
Today’s Devotional
I have two daughters who are young adults. They are both very different and they are at different levels of independence. One is completely on her own financially, and is in the Navy. The other daughter is in college and is newly married. I hear from both of them pretty often and I would say that our relationships are pretty good. Why am I telling you this?
There have been SO MANY times that I have wanted to give wisdom and direction but I was never asked. It is my opinion that as my girls are learning about adulthood, my advice should only be given when asked unless it’s a life-and-death situation. I have so many examples of situations where I knew things would not work out the way my daughter was hoping, but she never asked for my input. There have been a few occasions when I was asked for advice, and then that advice was not heeded. I am not perfect, or even especially skilled at parenting. But I have the wisdom that comes from experience. Most times, though, I am not asked for my input.
My guess is that God does the same things for us. He is always willing to help us, but many times we simply don’t ask. We go about our daily lives, many times desperately needing help, and never stop to ask God for His help.
Or if we do pray and ask God for help, we want a “magic wand” answer to our prayer. We just want God to handle it and fix it without any effort, cost, or inconvenience on our part. In my experience, that’s not how this works.
What if we took the time to ask God for His help, and then humbly listened for His guidance? What would that look like? For me, it involves:
- Recognizing that thinking about something is very different from praying and asking for God’s guidance
- Using search engines to look up certain topics in the Bible that might be helpful to me in a given situation
- Talking to other Godly people and actually asking for their advice. There is a difference between telling someone what is going on in my life versus saying, “Do you have any advice for me about this?”
- Journaling my requests for help
- Taking notes during sermons
- Sitting quietly with God
- Taking notice when a certain thought, word, theme, or verse comes to my attention repeatedly. (A sacred echo…)
God’s guidance is not always clear. I don’t always know exactly what I think God is guiding me to do. However, when I have an idea about what I think I am supposed to do, it is my responsibility to move in that direction. God will redirect me if I get it wrong.
My point today is that there is strength in asking God for help. There is power in knowing that we need God’s help. I truly believe that many times God is just politely waiting for us to ask.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How do you need God’s protection and strength today?
What do you need God’s help with?
Who might you ask for advice?
How can you listen for God’s guidance?
What steps do you need to take in the direction God is already leading you?