The God-Help Life

When it comes to the Bible, I have to admit that I have a few questions. Not necessarily questions of doubt or speculation, but of curiosity, intrigue, and wonder. Why was not more information provided about the time of God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden? Is it because there are no words to describe His presence? What is the purpose of God creating animals that He himself deemed unclean? How hard-hearted would one have to be to begin scoffing at the miracle of manna being provided day after day? Very judgy, I know, and I admit that I tend to be forgetful of times that God has shown up in miraculous ways.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more questions, but I doubt that I’ll have the mindset to ask when I get to heaven. One of my uncles has shared with me a question he wants to ask God – why gnats? Well, I have a similar question – why mosquitoes? Why couldn’t they have gone away in the flood?

If you really think about it, we all have questions like that. Some with a touch of accusation attached, am I right? We wouldn’t ever say it like that, but we have a tendency to get puffed up and have a fleeting thought that we know better than God. This doesn’t feel quite right – probably the Holy Spirit trying to clue me in – but it’s probably fine – I’ll show God that I can handle it. Anyone else? What about when we place expectations on ourselves of what we think would make us a good Christian, but we’re really striving to earn God’s favor?

The Holy Spirit doesn’t just guide us in the areas of what not to do, but He is also trying to steer us in the areas of what to do. In one of my more recent posts, Time to Shelve Self, it may sound as though I’m against self-help books. Well… I kind of am. They have their place, and they offer quite a bit of wisdom in how to be a successful human being, but they typically leave God out of the equation or merely give Him an honorable mention. Think about it – they aren’t called God-help books, are they? And without God, what do we really have?

Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.” Mark 4:26-29 NLT

I love the part where the farmer digs the seed up to crack it open, to force-feed it some fertilizer, and to pull the first sign of sprouting out. Oh wait, he didn’t do that. Even with those actions being backed by good intentions, they would bring about death to the potential crop. And without our actions being backed up by the Holy Spirit, all of our self-efforts will lead to failure.

But that’s what we do when we set out to do things in our own strength. We make silly promises and declarations to God and ourselves and they all hinge on our self-effort. I will do this for God… I will do that for God… I’ve made up my mind to do this and I will. On and on, all for God, but not necessarily reliant upon God to see it through.

And without reliance on God, we will fail… every single time. Every. Single. Time. The burn-out will come, and then we’ll add failure to what we believe is our identity.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. I John 1:8-9 NLT

It doesn’t say that we are faithful to forgive our sins. It doesn’t say that we cleanse ourselves from all wickedness. He is faithful. He forgives and cleanses us when we agree that we are lost without Him. So why do we keep trying to live our lives with God as a Sunday appointment? Or when we make declarations of our own faithfulness? When do we start believing the identity we have in Him instead of the identity we think we can obtain on our own?

As someone who has sought after self-help books, even once relied on them for guidance in my personal growth, I believe I can make this statement: Self-help books are for people who lack revelation of their identity in Christ.

If we focused on our true identity, we would effortlessly walk in the freedom Jesus provided us. We wouldn’t have to pre-decide to not have a drink at a party because there would be no draw to it. We wouldn’t have to psyche ourselves up to get through reading the Bible for 30 minutes because we would be excited to read His love letter to us. We wouldn’t feel burdened to pray for others because God would give us the desire to pray for the well-being of others.

We would be bearing the fruit without forcing the seed.

As we begin to see ourselves as royalty of the Most High God, we will start acting accordingly. This is something I wrote four years ago in the post titled Who I Am. In it, I was attacking the hate-filled divisions sparked by politics, the incessant attack on the nuclear family, the enemy taking over the church, and the disregard for human life (born and unborn) – and it’s more than appropriate to bring this up again in light of current events.

Self-help is leading us to self-absorbed, and self-absorbed leads to hate. If we continue in the mindset of consistency in our own efforts, we will find that we’re boasting in the mountains we manage to climb, and we’ll fail to see that we’re on the wrong mountain. God is never going to call us to something that we can do without Him. Stop putting a value on your efforts and see the truth of the value of His accomplishments – and all that He’ll do through you when you choose God-help over self-help (Philippians 3:6-10).

I still have questions – mosquitoes being at the top of the list – but I never want to question my identity or my motives. I never want to be ashamed because I want all that I have, say, and do to all belong to God. But I can’t do it. It has to be Him. So long, self – I choose the God-help life.