What do you do when you’re in over your head? 

To this day, if you visit my parents’ house, you’ll see the rope burn on the windowsill of the second story garage apartment. The divot is a result of the jerry-rigged operation my dad cooked up to heave a cast iron tub through that second-story window for an apartment he built for my grandmother. He needed help, so he assembled the troops – my mom, my five-year-old sister, and seven-year-old me – to get the task done. Grandma never even lived in that apartment. 

My dad is a figure-it-out-no-matter-what kind of guy, and I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from that tree.  

But when the time comes that you are in over your head, what’s your play? Stacy can testify to the fact that often I’m still a little too hard-headed or prideful to ask for help when I need it. I’ve carried too many couches up the stairs by myself . . . it doesn’t have to be that way. 

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 

In a world where we have more “friends” than friends, and social media communities fall flat, how do you find those guys? 

I remember reading a story about an Amish community that suffered destruction after a natural disaster. They rebuilt their community together, in record time. When we are forced to build community, we will. We see this on the mission field or a military base. Families alone in a foreign land will seek each other out because they are hungry for community. 

Our recent 1 Quick Question shows we’ve all had times we needed help or wisdom. We need guys, connections with men, whether it’s a neighbor, church group, or a small band of brothers you’ve formed over time. Most of us have been guilty of building a fence around ourselves, but it’s time to tear the fences down and build connections. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we were made for community, and we need to form bonds with others. Yes, that’s true even when it means humbling myself to ask for help. 

There’s probably someone willing to help if we are willing to ask.

When I don’t ask for help, it robs me of the blessing of learning and walking in humility, and it robs someone else of the blessing of being able to help.  

I’m hopeful that my sons will be better about asking for and receiving help than their hard-headed dad and granddad! I need to show them how.

No more moving couches by myself.