In today’s economy, many of us have resorted to becoming DIYers. In fact, there is a channel on the television that is entitled DIY. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it is Do It Yourself. The show demonstrates all sorts of projects that can be tackled by anyone up for the challenge. For some, doing it themselves, even with the program, could be an experience of spending more money to correct the mistakes they made, than if they had hired the professional! There are a whole host of things I won’t attempt, one of them is cutting hair. When my son was young, I thought I’d save a few dollars, I think I’m still asking for his forgiveness for the botched job I did around his ears…..can we say Mr. Spock?!
Some things are just not meant to be DIY and amazingly the biggest job out there not meant for that is “Life.” We were created in the image of God and then given the entire world to take care of, but somewhere along the line we forgot that we weren’t supposed to do this without His help!
God blessed the entire earth with everything known to man. That includes what man has created because God gave man the gift of imagination to be able to create. This is not DIY, it is DWG, Do With God! Unfortunately, for many of us, we see the results of what our hands accomplish and forget that God gave us those abilities. We become prideful and pride then closes the door on God. This blog is an example, it would be very easy for me to take the accolades I receive and let them go to my head and make me think I’m all that. I’m not all that, in any sense of the imagination. As stated yesterday in my blog about “Broken Hearts,” I asked God to show me and use me, and I’m not without my own broken heart at times. When things fall apart, it is because something “I’ve” done hasn’t lined up with God’s desires.
Interestingly, when things fall apart, we tend to blame God rather than looking at it as a mess we created. So, let me get this straight in my own mind, we take credit for the good, but we blame God for the bad. It would seem to me, that if we take credit for the one, we should also be taking credit for the other!!! However, there is another choice. We can give God the credit for allowing us to be in the position to be used and providing us with the tools necessary for the job at hand and then for the success of a job well done, when finished. If we choose this route in every aspect of our lives, there shouldn’t be any screw-ups to be blaming God for!
Somewhere in this scenario the words pride and independence are co-mingling. I consider myself to be a strong, independent woman and thus I relate to other strong, independent women. I am passionate about things in life and don’t understand people who don’t possess passions. I mean there is a lot out there to choose from, yet some, never make that choice, why? And I don’t have an answer for that, I’m literally asking why! What happened in their life that deferred them from developing a passion?
When thinking this through a bit, I wonder if it is because things were always being done FOR them, that they then never had to try or learn to do anything for themselves! On the other hand, there are people who feel they have to do it all, without the help of anyone and I unfortunately would have to put myself in that position. I have a difficult time asking for help. The reasons are either it’s because I don’t want to bother anyone with my “situation,” or I am afraid I’ll ask and no one will say yes or they’ll say yes and I’ll wind up having to do it again myself. But to be perfectly honest, it is more reason #2.
I was the head of the department for a few months when I was teaching. Whenever I needed help getting a sub for a class because someone was leaving early for a coaching trip, the rest of the staff seemed to crawl into some hole and disappear. I finally learned to just do it myself and stopped asking. Now I see friends, who value their independence and when they seem like they may need a hand, I offer and it isn’t one of those open-ended empty offers like call if you need me, because those offers are never the ones anyone takes someone up on. My offers are ones set in concrete. I won’t say yes, if I can’t do it.
A lesson I learned is that my “pride” gets in the way of my asking. I think, I have to do it all myself for reasons unknown. That is not what God intended, ever. That is why he just didn’t create Adam! And that is not to say that only “Adams” need to be the helpmate to the woman. The differences as I’ve been discussing with a friend is that unfortunately men and women don’t speak the same language all the time. But that subject has already been covered in “Men are from Mars and Women from Venus!”
I don’t want to stray too far from my point, which is, asking and accepting help from others AND from God. We are not alone, unless we choose to be. I will admit to having had walls built up around me for a long time, each brick of that wall was laid one at a time, so dismantling that wall has also been lengthy. But I found a solution for speeding that process up, and the solution was turning my life and my desires to the ones that God has for me. Now the wall is almost leveled and it was because I let my heart be broken for what breaks His! I’m no longer a DIYer, I've become a DWGer.
Looking up!~Barb
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