Strength to the Weary
Have you ever tried to put to complete a project around the house by yourself? Well, I’ve been married for almost 25 years and we have two adult children, so over the years I’ve had a lot of these kinds of projects to do around the house. Oh yes—there’s always a piece of furniture to put together, or a big item to move from one room to another, or my personal favorite—yardwork that needs to be completed.
What I find is that when I start these kinds of projects, my natural tendency is to begin to do the work by myself. For some reason, I always walk into these situations alone. What I often quickly realize is that it’s really difficult to complete the tasks at hand by myself and truthfully, I need help. Now I would love to say that when I recognize that truth, that I always ask for help—but truthfully, I don’t always ask. Sometimes I just go on working on my own even when I know I need help.
Asking for help is hard—Even when I know it’s needed. In a time of need, my preferred route has been to bear down and pretend everything is fine. There are even times when I isolate myself and then throw myself a string of silent pity parties, and then once I have finally fallen apart, I blow up to whoever is unfortunate enough to ask me how I’m doing.
Have you ever experienced that?—And not just in the projects around the house; in your everyday life? We’ve probably all been there. In a situation where we should have asked for help, and we didn’t. Maybe it’s at work or on campus or in your marriage or with your children.
Well, here’s the thing, God’s promises cover the entire range of our needs, troubles, and problems. All throughout His word he communicates that we can come to Him for help. When we come to Him through prayer not only does he Hear us, but also, He can renew our strength.
In Isaiah 40:29-31 it says: He (God) gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. It goes on to say that, even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
This is a promise of God that shares even when we’re weak, God can offer help to us. He invites us to ask for help. I think where we miss the mark at times, is we think asking for help is admitting failure and maybe it’s just admitting the reality that we all need help. Well fortunately for us, God is able to offer that kind of help.
You see when I’m working on one of those projects around the house and I’ve asked for help, often times it not only relieves the need for me to do all of these things on my own ending up in exhaustion, but it also builds the relationship stronger with the person I go to, in order to ask for help. Our decision to ask God for help invites him into our lives in a very real way and often strengthens our relationship with Him.
So, the next time you’re faced with a situation where you can ask for help or do it on your own, I want to encourage you to be okay with asking the Lord for help. You can pray and ask for help or you can reach out to someone else who knows the Lord and ask them to join you in prayer.
Discussion Question:
In the chat below, I’d love for you to join me by sharing a time in your life where you asked the Lord for help, and He showed up. You never know how your story might help someone else and prompt them to seek the Lord’s help.