When Accepting Help is as Good as Giving Help

Is there ever a time when accepting help is as good as giving help? What kind of reasoning is that?

Um...it's Matthew 10 reasoning, straight out of the mouth of Jesus.

My friend, in Scooby-Doo style, would say, "Ruh-roh." That means we've got it all wrong. What self-respecting, do-it-yourself American would want to accept help in the same vein as give help?

Give puts us on top. Accept puts us on the bottom. Or so we think. Once again, left to our own devices, we conveniently overlook what God is really saying.

The truth is we start out on the bottom. To even enter into this stuff of God, we have to wrestle with accepting help. Acknowledging what Jesus did on the cross is accepting help. Okay, so we swallow that one, pride left a bit intact because that applies to everyone.

But then, in the thick of giving over our will to God, we find ourselves slammed into some fencepost of life. We are in dire need of help and we are furious at God for those circumstances. Ignoring our fury and discomfort, he says (Matthew 10):

Accepting someone's help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. 

Oh, that's more like it. I can give that. (There I am on top again.) But keep reading:

The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing.

Our American pride says we will lose out by receiving. We will have to admit we need help.

Earlier in Matthew 10, there is the most peculiar idea:

If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.

Weird bargain. I often wonder if God planted the seed of freedom into American soil, with the resources and energy to do it ourselves, to see if we would discover the grand momentum a country can gain by giving it all back to him for his use and direction.

Forget about ourselves and accept help. Interesting concept with which to begin our workweek.

Best advice? Love that fencepost you might slam into--receive the help that comes by way of it. You will find yourself by accepting help, taking another step into his apprenticeship. That is "work" we can be proud of.

Image: livinginmycar.com.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.