By Tanya Jolliffe
For a few years, I led a six-month discipleship program for high school students as part of a church confirmation experience. Each fall, my co-leader and I would take the group on an overnight retreat for team building and fun. We coordinated the fun activities but had professionals leading the youth in various team-building exercises over the two days.
One of those activities became the highlight experience I looked forward to each year. We would blindfold each person and lead them to a cobweb maze of intertwining ropes tied between a group of trees. One by one, each member of the group was led to a section of rope as the entire group was spread throughout the maze. The instructions were simple: Get out of the maze by moving through the ropes while always maintaining at least one hand on a rope. You can go around another person or change ropes if one hand remains on a rope. If you need help at any time, simply raise your hand and say you need help, and one of us will be happy to help.
Once the teens were given the signal to go, the laughter began as they inched along the rope unsure of what was ahead. Soon they found themselves at a dead-end next to a tree or a group of other people. All the while the leader continued her instruction that if anyone needed help, they just needed to raise their hand and ask for help.
Some students would share strategies with one another as they moved throughout the maze while others were set to go it alone. My co-leader and I could almost predict who would ask for help first and who would resist. Most of the time we were right, but sometimes we would be surprised. Those surprises usually brought out the most profound reflections at the end of the exercise which was always a highlight of the experience. I won’t share anymore about the activity so as not to ruin it for someone that might get the opportunity to participate in this great team-building activity.
As someone that has always been an “I do by self” person, I have often wondered how I would have done in this activity when I was their age. Would I have tried and tried to figure it out until I had exhausted every rope opportunity? Would I have become frustrated and mad that I couldn’t figure it out? (I’m pretty sure this would have been me in high school.) Or would I give it my best shot and then after conferring with others that there was “no way out,” would I relent and ask for help. We saw all those responses and many more in our groups year after year.
Why is it so hard for us to ask for help?
Scripture teaches us that there is much to gain by asking for help from other people. “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NIV). God never meant for us to go it alone but to have friends and family to help us navigate the small obstacles of life as well as the big ones.
Jesus teaches us, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12 NIV), and the first step to sharing love is to be there to help another. If we don’t ask for help, we rob others of an opportunity to share love. “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42 NIV). “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality” (Romans 12:13 NIV).
As you continue to weave through this cobweb maze called life, what situations have caused you to search out options on your own, generated frustration, or led you to feel defeated because you don’t see any way out? Have you considered asking for help, asking people in your life, but more importantly asking the Lord for his help?
- “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:13-14 NIV).
- “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8 NIV).
- “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NIV).
- “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15 NIV).
- “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7 NIV).
So, what are you waiting for? Raise your hand and ask for help. There are plenty of people and the Lord waiting, happy to help.
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