Posts Tagged: asking for help

“On Adjusting Numbered Lists and My Attitude”

On August 23, 2022 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Until a few minutes ago, I hated doing numbered lists that include (and/or exceed) 100. The reason is so trivial that it is exceedingly unreasonable: Beginning with the number 100, the document looks messy. When I reach 100, Microsoft Word begins throwing in extra space between the numbers and whatever text accompanies the number.

I’ve never been formally diagnosed as being a compulsive person. However, that does not prevent me from being one. (Oh my! I just looked online to see if the word “prevent” already has the idea of “from” in it, so that the word “from” was unnecessary. I am in even worse shape than I had thought!)

However, this post is actually not about being compulsive. Rather, it is about being a problem solver, as an antidote to carrying around low-grade irritation all the time. I decided to see if I could figure out how to fix this numbering-with-too-much-space issue. I had tried several things in the past that had not worked. So, this time I asked Professor Google. My first hit helped me to solve the problem in a matter of seconds.

So, did I solve the problem, or did someone else solve it? Yes! I humbled myself. I asked for help. I tried what I was advised to do.

Voila! Problem solved.

You may ask, “What does this have to do with me or with anything that actually matters?” My answer is, “A lot!”

That same approach might help us to solve all kinds of problems. And for those of us who believe in God, we believe—at least in theory—that we have an even more powerful search engine than Google. It might be that we could solve a lot of our problems by humbling ourselves, asking for God’s help, and then doing what God says. Each of those three things seems to be easy. Right? However, though they are easy to understand, they are difficult to practice. We all struggle with pride that keeps us from asking for help. And acting on the help we are offered is about as common as hair on a frog. G. K Chesterton said that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Indeed!

We have probably all spent a lot of time trying to change ourselves in substantial ways. We’ve augmented our irritation but not our growth in character. How about trying this threefold approach instead:

  1. Humble yourself.
  2. Ask God for help.
  3. Do what God says.

If it doesn’t work, you can always ask for online help. And who knows? Perhaps God can speak through the internet, too. God spoke to me today through the internet. I don’t think that God plays favorites.

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