Imagine this scene: You are walking and trying to cross a busy street. There are two lanes of cross traffic going in both directions.
A vehicle in the lane closest to you stops and the driver motions to you that you can cross.
That’s wonderful. That’s great. That’s helpful. However, the automobiles in the other lanes do not share that driver’s attitude and they have no intention of stopping and letting you cross the street.
Somewhat embarrassed now, you step in front of the stopped vehicle to show an effort and an acceptance of the gesture, but you sort of shrug, admit defeat, and motion to the driver a melancholy wave that says “thanks, but no thanks”.
Maybe not within that exact scenario, but how many times have you had moments like that in your life?
How many times have you asked for and prayed for help in your life and it was answered by the helpful driver (or, the Almighty One, metaphorically speaking), BUT other fallen and flawed, yet made-in-the-image-and-likeness-of-God humans got in our way of being helped?
We believe in God. We believe in His love and mercy. We believe in His saving power. We believe, but we somehow let those around us get in the way of the help from the One all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving.
What a world we live in.
‘Get out of my [His] way!’
I’m not advocating the idea of walking out into traffic as a sign of faith in God.
Please don’t do that. You will probably get hit by a car. That is exactly what you didn’t want to happen and that’s not going to help anybody.
We do, however, need to find ways to not allow others to stand in the way of God’s blessing for us.
Even better, and in my usual “next level” fashion, we need to stop, out of a lack of faith, putting others in between us and God.
What if we did a better job of finding less busy streets to cross? What if we did a better job finding crossing signals to get to where we are going? God’s help, acts of love themselves, shouldn’t lead us into pits of a negative and hindering humanity.
Don’t worry, I’ll eventually speed away from the vehicle and traffic metaphors.
If we’re asking for God’s help, we need to accept God’s help, not still relying on others and weakening the love and mercy we are receiving.
Does this mean we should avoid all people all of the time? You know I’m not saying that, even though I feel that more often than I should.
There are many times God works His wonders through others. These are the “creatures” that are truly there to help us, love us, be with us, and be examples to us on how to live out His mission and call.
How do we find the right people to gravitate to and be around? Ah, that is a lifelong challenge. I’ve been lifelong guilty of placing my trust in the wrong people after praying for God’s help. I had no patience to wait for His answer so I ran to the first shiny person I saw who never really ended up helping me anyway.
Then back to praying, back to not waiting, and back to shiny all over again.
There’s a lesson in that — waiting for the answer.
Does it make sense to “nope, never mind” someone who is trying to help us via a process that takes time, but we want instant results?
Jumping from potential solution to potential solution doesn’t help us if we don’t wait for the conclusion of the actual help we are in the process of getting.
Does any of that make sense? How do you think God feels watching us in our impatient weakness? But He does still love us. Thank Him for that.
Where and how to trust
Everything starts with God.
Our asking for help starts with God.
Our getting help starts with God.
It doesn’t help to place our trust in a person for what we are praying to God for.
A “come, Holy Spirit” can go a long way if we are truly open to the prayer being answered in His way, in His time.
Will God work through others? Absolutely. The more and closer we align our hearts with God’s, the more we will be able to recognize who these messengers and disciples are — they are out there.
The next time that driver stops to only partially let you cross the street, try and find the bigger message being communicated.
Maybe it’s that He is here, help is here, but not quite here here.
Maybe as we’re stuck in a mess of humanity, He just wants to tell us that He got the message and He’s with us and He’s working on it.
Let’s place all our trust in Him.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.