When You Have Trouble Asking for Help

Questions were bubbling to the surface of my consciousness. However, one particular question really disturbed me, and I honestly didn’t know the answer. What if I’m not fit to be around grandkids someday? I began to see who I was becoming. That shook me.

I was repeating a generational tendency not to be able to ask for help. I viewed asking for help as a weakness and took the prideful position of helping others but not acknowledging I needed it. That lie had me in its full-throated grip, and I was losing.

I preferred to figure out my solutions. It’s just how I learned to do things. I was trying to protect myself the best way I knew how. And the fear of being publicly humiliated with my problems out for everyone to see is what I know now to be the fear of shame. Human beings go to great lengths to avoid it.

So why didn’t I reach out for help? Two thoughts led my thinking at the time. One – that denying a problem existed would protect me from the pain of shame I’d experience if and when people found out. Buzz-wrong – it didn’t avoid any pain and only compounded the pain. Two – I could fix it myself, and no one would need to know. Buzz-wrong – what I was doing always affected other people and would only resolve the same way.

We never fix ourselves from the consequences of sin, and we never do it in isolation.

From the fall in Genesis 3, that’s the potent combo of sin, blame, and shame. It distracts. It justifies. It moves the ownership and points to someone or something else. But here is the deal – spiritually, we “get it” – we know it deep in our hearts on a subconscious level. But, emotionally and physically, we don’t “get it”; we deceive ourselves. 1 John 1:8 

We also will think we know better than God. The Bible tells us that we flatter ourselves too much to discover what’s really at the bottom of what’s hurting us. Psalm 36:2 

As long as I told myself I was okay, I was okay. But the truth was my thinking and behavior were spilling out into the family I professed to love. And if my words don’t match the actions, that’s not loving. 1 John 3:18  I could start to see a clearer picture when I wondered how my behavior would affect future generations.

Sin always impacts future generations. Deuteronomy 5:9

“I should have been stronger,” I’ve thought so many times. But if I had been stronger, I wouldn’t have needed Jesus.

So now I can honestly be thankful for the weakness I could no longer deny. Now I understand what it’s like not to feel able to ask for help or to stop something, to feel out of control and vulnerable, and that experience has grown my compassion for others in the same situation.

Thankfully I’d given myself to a faithful Father in heaven who helped bring the issue into the light. God now battled on my behalf because I had humbled myself and submitted to Jesus as Savior and Lord in my life. James 4:6

So, I ask these questions with the hope and passion that you can learn from my experience. Are you a person who can’t ask for help? What is keeping you from asking? And would you let God speak into that chasm?