Digging Out; Where Does Your Help Come From?

I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1-2

The boy’s day starts long before his sister or I consider waking.

Winter brings challenges to our West Michigan home, primarily in the form of a relatively long driveway built on an incline. There is a slight curve in the middle, identifying those who belong to this driveway and those who do not. Experience is required to navigate both an entrance to and an exit from the home that sits atop the hill, experience or a four-wheel drive vehicle.

The boy’s car is not four-wheel drive. It is a sporty Volkswagen GTI, turbo charged, equipped with low profile performance tires. The boy loves his car. Skill and focus are needed to get that little beauty up and down our Michigan driveway. Skill he has, focus at 5:30 am, not so much.

Bright lights and the familiar sound of a Volkswagen engine revving wake me early. I rise in the frigid morning fumbling for my glasses to peek through the window. I see this boy, almost a man, leaning on his hands over the hood of his car, yelling at her in disappointment. It is as if she has betrayed him by stopping sideways with her front tires off the driveway and co-mingling with a large ice-packed snow bank. In the moment, I ache for the boy and what appears to be an overwhelming moment that will undoubtedly leave him late for work.

Like any momma who is keeping days until her boy, almost a man, will no longer make his home with her, I pull on long socks, boots, hat, mittens, coat, carry a shovel and go out to meet the cold pre-dawn air.

He does not ask for help. Asking for help does not come easy. Some may hint at pride. It is not pride. It is self-sufficiency evolving from a heart that has encountered one too many transactions required for help, this for that, one too many disappointments when help has failed to arrive. Self-sufficiency from digging oneself out of hurt that unexpectedly comes from those he loves and from life circumstances.

Without acknowledging the fact that our two slim figures together amount to very little power, I join him in moving the snowbank away from his tires.

In John 5 Jesus encounters a man, long broken and unable to walk, lying near a pool. The Bethesda pool, known to be a place of healing, a place where those who are disabled gather. Jesus sees him, amidst the crowd of many and asks him point blank, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6).

The man does not answer directly. Rather, he provides a list of reasons he is not well. There is no one to help him. There are too many others, and the others crowd him, getting to the water first.

Standing before the unnamed man is the Great Physician (Matthew 11:4-5) seeking him for an appointment.

“Do you want to get well?“

He never answers with a yes. Perhaps he is comfortable wallowing among the others like him. Perhaps he cannot imagine a life different than the one he is living. Perhaps his past is marked by disappointed hope and help that never came. Perhaps the risk of yet another broken heart is much too high, and more than he can bear.

Jesus does not ask him a second time before He heals him. “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!” At once the man is cured. He picks up his mat and walks (John 5:8-9). If the man had known who stood before him (John 5:13), would he have answered, “yes, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the Living God, heal me. I want to be well“?

Now I am no Jesus, not even close. But what motivates me to leave my warm bed and march out in a dark February morning with a shovel is the same force that motivates Jesus Christ to seek the broken man. I love the boy. He does not need to ask me for help before I desire to help him.

What do you need help with?

Are you stuck in a lifestyle, a pattern of living that you no longer want? Is the physical burden of your life too much? Are you wallowing in your pain, your misery, your loneliness, reciting excuses for not leaving your pit (perhaps wholly legitimate)? Are you not able to recognize the Christ who stands before you and asks, “Do you want to be well?”

He is the engineer of your circumstances. Can He not change them or give you the strength to endure them with abundance, joy and fullness of life? Do you trust Him enough to ask Him?

A lot of shoveling, a bit of maneuvering, a bit of pushing (I am sure this was it, all the girth and power of my frame pushed that little car onto the driveway), a few prayers whispered under my breath and the boy is on his way, the front wheels finally catching. He rolls onto the road, his window still down and I call to him, “Be careful E, I love you”.

The boy replies as he leaves, “Thanks, Mom”. One lesson closer to being a man, not quite a boy.