“Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray. Your helplessness is your best prayer.” (Hallesby, Prayer, 1975)
Helplessness. Isn’t that what we feel so often as parents? Overthinking. Second guessing. Uncertain.
In those moments, our wonderful Heavenly Father waits for us to call out to him. He is there. He can help calm our hearts, remove our fears, and fill us with his wisdom and guidance if we will just turn to him.
Helplessness is uncomfortable for us. We want to feel in charge and in control. Admitting our helplessness feels like failure, but in truth, it is surrender. We are acknowledging our need for our Savior.
Remember when you first found Christ and realized your utter hopelessness and helplessness to save yourself? Remember too, the amazing joy, peace, and hope you found as you realized Jesus’ forgiveness and complete salvation. Parenting can bring us to our knees in this same way. We feel utterly unqualified to be a parent, and when we admit that to God, we find that joy, peace, and hope we need to keep going and to trust him to help us as we teach and train our children and also as he works in their lives apart from anything we can do. It is a sweet surrender to our loving God who loves us and loves our children.
I want to share two quick stories with you that I hope help me illustrate this kind of surrender in our helplessness.
One is when my son was only a toddler, and we were unpacking boxes. Somehow a butcher knife had been put into the box that was in our bedroom. He found it, and came toward me carrying it saying, “Mommy, danger!” In that moment, you can imagine the pictures going through my mind of him falling and hurting himself or falling into me and hurting us both. I was terrified and mystified that a knife had been packed in the wrong box, and in those few seconds, thoughts of how that could have happened were running through my mind. At the same time, I’m proud of him for knowing that knife was dangerous. Our brains are amazing funny things in times like that. The whole situation was crazy. But as all those thoughts ran through my mind while my little son toddled toward me, I had to calm down. I prayed. I pleaded with God for protection, and I calmly responded to my son. He stopped, and I was able to safely get the knife out of his hand.
I’m sure most of us have stories where our children were in danger, and we were helpless to do anything. It’s a terrible feeling, but when we can acknowledge that helplessness and call out to the One who can help, we can find hope and peace in that moment.
The second story is from our current journey. God called us back to the mission field. My husband and I moved to Thailand, and our children stayed in the States. They are all adults, but with three of them being on the autism spectrum, navigating adulthood can be a challenge. As I cried out to God as we were preparing for this move, I was able to come to the place where I let go of my kids. I had never quite wholeheartedly given them to God, but I knew I would be helpless to do anything from halfway around the world other than pray for them and listen to them as they shared their fears or concerns. Something miraculous happened as I released them into his hands more completely than I ever had. Peace and joy flooded my heart and mind. I felt hopeful for their futures more than ever. In fact, in the next couple weeks, God confirmed again and again that not only were we going to see God do amazing things on the mission field, but we were going to see him do amazing things in our children’s lives. We’ve already started to see great things happening in their lives.
I share these to remind us that we don’t need to be afraid of our helplessness and surrendering and submitting to God. For years, as a believer, I held on to a crazy fear of trusting God completely. Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing. I think it comes from all those stories when people say that God will send you where you don’t want to go if you surrender to him. I hate that. It’s just not true, well, unless you’re Jonah, I suppose. However, if we are being obedient and want to serve God, I believe wholeheartedly he sends us where he prepares our hearts to go. He carries us through every circumstance, Whatever happens, his grace is sufficient. We need to pray, trust, and obey. But we also must understand God’s character. He is not playing games with us. He is not malicious or a trickster. He is holy, loving, kind, and generous.
So, like O. Hallesby said above and as King David prayed in Psalm 86, we come to God in helpless surrender, praying and trusting him.
1 Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer;
answer me, for I need your help.
2 Protect me, for I am devoted to you.
Save me, for I serve you and trust you.
You are my God.
3 Be merciful to me, O Lord,
for I am calling on you constantly.
4 Give me happiness, O Lord,
for I give myself to you.
5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,
so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.
6 Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord;
hear my urgent cry.
7 I will call to you whenever I’m in trouble,
and you will answer me.
8 No pagan god is like you, O Lord.
None can do what you do!
9 All the nations you made
will come and bow before you, Lord;
they will praise your holy name.
10 For you are great and perform wonderful deeds.
You alone are God.
11 Teach me your ways, O Lord,
that I may live according to your truth!
Grant me purity of heart,
so that I may honor you.
12 With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God.
I will give glory to your name forever,
13 for your love for me is very great.
You have rescued me from the depths of death.
14 O God, insolent people rise up against me;
a violent gang is trying to kill me.
You mean nothing to them.
15 But you, O Lord,
are a God of compassion and mercy,
slow to get angry
and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
16 Look down and have mercy on me.
Give your strength to your servant;
save me, the son of your servant.
17 Send me a sign of your favor.
Then those who hate me will be put to shame,
for you, O Lord, help and comfort me.
(Psalm 86, NLT)