01 Oct Need help? – Oct 15

By: Jeffry Oscar

One day I woke up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming pain on my knee. I was planning to get some pain killers. I struggled for a while in moving my body into sitting position and tried to stand up. At that point, my wife was awaken and she noticed that I was in pain. She immediately went to kitchen to get the pain killer and a cup of water for me to drink. I thanked her and encouraged her to sleep again, assuring her that I would be fine once the painkiller started to kick in.

I always consider myself as an able person where I would have done everything by myself rather than relying on others or even ask for help. This situation used to be a massive blow to my own ego, which made me realise that most of the time I tried so hard to “help” myself and set up high standard that I can do it without anyone’s help!

Maybe some of us were raised in similar culture where we were told that we should able to take care of things ourselves and often denied someone else’s help. Most of the times the reason why we denied others’ help had more to do with our pride than concern for them. We concern more about “how bad we would look like if people knew that we were struggling” rather than “whether they would be happier if we allowed them to help”. As a result, most of us appeared as if we do not need any help and always have it all together. Worse off, we were trying to appear okay in front of God thinking that we could solve the problem by ourselves. We might not say it out loud but we were trying to search answers ourselves and after we failed, we realised that we need to involve God.

However, through many other “painful” situations in my life, I learned that I am not able to do everything on my own. People around me are not only as an individual whom I can bless, but they are also there to bless me. Besides, when we allow others to help us, they are blessed as they feel that they can lend a helping hand to someone who is actually in need.

So the next time when you are struggling hard, don’t forget that you do not have to do it alone. Pray to God and grab someone you can trust to pray together with you. The true strength does not come from trying to be strong all the time, rather it comes from acknowledging that we are often weak, we need help and in Christ, He will empower us to complete the task He has set for us, alongside with our brothers and sisters in Christ.