“We are not meant to walk this journey by ourselves.”
Today we soaked in the message of the “Balance of Three” as there’s God, there’s us as individuals and there’s others. God calls on us to seek out the others and to make connections with our neighbors.
This balance of three was brought to us with Moses. We entered the time when Moses needed to hold up the staff to help Joshua fight the Amalekites and his arms grew tired...but he knew that if he lowered his arms that people would die. So Aaron and Hur stepped up and helped him out; they held up his arms. They didn’t criticize him, call him weak, try to take over, or worse, leave him. They allowed him to still fulfill his calling while supporting him so that he could do what he needed.
How many times in your life could you use some help but for some reason(s) you do not ask for it, or accept it when it is offered? If this feels like your experience, you are likely refusing to ask or receive help because you have fear about how you will be perceived, you have fear that help will be withheld, you have fear that you may become more reliant upon help. A wise person once told me that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. You somehow have come to believe that asking for help is a bad thing. This is false. You have this fear because you don’t realize yet that you need a God Crew. The wise person who taught me the FEAR acronym is part of my God Crew.
I learned the unofficial name of “God Crew” in yesterday’s message, but I have had my God Crew since 2013 when the parents of a Theatre student of mine came to my rescue during a challenging time. You see, I am someone who likes to be the “standout”, the teacher that “does it all”, the director that not only creates life on stage within a story, but inspires her students to be curious, to play, to seek experiences outside of their comfort zones, to question, to be challenged, to fall, and to rise up again. I am a teacher who also chooses to nurture my students when I see that it’s needed and yet I wasn’t doing anything to nurture myself. I wasn’t allowing myself to be nurtured by others. Blake said,
“When we don’t ask for help we are destroying ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally. We will wear ourselves out.”
Referring to that time in 2013, I had done the thing, I had chosen a very challenging script with regard not only to what my student performers had to do, but to the set that my design crew had to build. From not asking for help, and wanting to “do it all” under the FEAR that I would be perceived as not enough, I found myself in quite a bind where my set for the play wasn’t ready when it needed to be. I was Moses trying to do the darn thing and hold up the staff with my arms but they were beyond tired, they had become weak and were failing. I needed an Aaron and a Hur. Blake said,
“The thing you want God to do for you---might be found in the people around you.”
I honestly do not remember how it came to pass that my student’s parents rushed in to be miracle makers in my situation, but they did. God wanted me to learn how to nurture myself and accept help, to learn that it is okay to do so. I allowed them to help me. They taught me the important lesson that none of us are meant to do life alone. They taught me what Blake said,
“When I ask for help, I’m creating longevity in my calling.”
When I accepted and appropriately used (and later asked for) the help that these people were so lovingly giving me, I was better at my job. Imagine that! I had less fear, I was more relaxed and therefore I could better serve my students.
Blake said that “There’s always someone looking to you.” When I was reluctant to ask for or accept help, I was teaching my students that there is something wrong with receiving help. What a horrible thing to bestow upon such impressionable adolescent minds! I had always told them that it was a good thing to ask for help when its needed and yet I was showing them that I wasn’t willing to do what I was asking them to do. My students were always looking to me to see what I would say or do next. I felt this and then I used that situation from 2013 to share how I had accepted help and how much better things were because of it.
This God Crew in my life has blessed me in more ways than I can possibly share. The more I accepted their help, the more I allowed them to see the real me. As we got to know each other better, they became people who also provided spiritual guidance, and they were the people who led my family to Radius Church. Blake said,
“There is a balance of three that enables us to move through the journeys of our lives.”
God wants us to seek out others and to be the kind of people that love our neighbors by accepting the love our neighbors try to give us.
When you find your God Crew and accept help when you need it you become more capable, you become more at peace, you become more YOU.
