Friday, November 7, 2008
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Can I Help You?
If you have ever been shopping for anything and who hasn't, I would venture a guess that you have been asked this question: "Can I help you?" And your response was entirely predictable. Most likely you said . . . . You guessed it. Almost invariably and without even thinking, we reply, "No, just looking," and maybe you will add a "thanks" on the end just to be polite. Wait a minute, I am in a shoe store. I came in here just to "look" at shoes because I have nothing better to do with my time? No, I want a pair of shoes but I told the salesperson that I was just looking. How silly.
My son and I were on a car lot a few days ago. He is looking for a car in the not too distant future. The salesman who came out committed the fateful error. "Can I help you?" he asked. "No, just looking," we replied. "Okay," he countered, "just let me know if you need anything," and he went back inside where it was warm. We looked and left. Went to another lot. This salesman was a bit better and asked a few more questions and even got our name and number. When I was trained as a car salesman, we were taught not to ask this question. If "can I help you?" almost always brings a "no, just looking" response, we were told to ask other questions that would lead the "looker" to be a "buyer." We were told that no one comes to a car lot just to look and to not take no for an answer. We were taught to be pretty aggressive. That kind of pressure is not enjoyable on either end.
I wonder whether we don't treat God the same way some times. He comes to us and asks if he can help us. He knows that he can really help us and he knows that he has what we need, but he is not about to force it on us or manipulate us to choose the best. When he asks, "can I help you?" it is a sincere offer. And he waits for us to respond. He wouldn't have created us with free will, freedom of choice, like himself, if he had wanted us to have no other answer than yes. I wonder, no, I recognize that I often respond to God's offer of help with something akin to "no, just looking." I want to do it on my own. I'll only come to you if I think that I really need help. I'll try first and if I really botch things up, well, then I'll come. In the end, I wonder why I do this? Why do we resist his help?
God is not aggressive. At least not in a bad way. He is persistent. He will keep coming back. And he will not hesitate to show us the errors of our own ways of thinking. But there is absolutely nothing self-serving in his offer of help. He is not trying to get something from us. He is trying desperately to give us something that we could use, something we need more than anything else in the world.
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair" (Isaiah 61:1-3).
This is the prophet Isaiah's description of the ministry of God's servant hundreds of years before Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth and claimed this scripture as now to be fulfilled in him (Luke 4:16-21). This ministry that Jesus embraced comes right out of the Spirit — the passionate heart center of God himself! And it is not an offer of help that comes from someone who cares but can do little, on the contrary, it comes from the Sovereign LORD — the one who is over all and orders all things according to his perfect will and plan!
It is this One, this God, this Jesus, who comes to you and me and says, here is what I came to do. Are you poor, I have good news. Are you broken in spirit, I will minister to those places. Broken in body, I can heal. Bound up by this or that, I will free you. All that we need is in him and he is all that we need. He asks, "can I help you?" and he waits. And we continue to "look around" looking to others, to the world, inside ourselves. If you lost something and found it in the first place you looked, would you keep on searching? Of course not! Do you think Jesus wonders why we don't come to him first, why we don't accept the help he offers?
There may be many "reasons" why we don't come. In reality, they are only "excuses." Over and over again in scripture, we are told to do one simple thing: "come." Can he help us? Why yes, he most certainly can. Will we let him is the question? Or will we continue "just looking." Everything that we could possibly need or want is there for the taking. A banquet is spread out before us.
"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man that takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing" (Psalm 34:8-10).
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