It's a Puzzle: A 10-Day Devotional About... LifeSample

Day 7: It’s Okay To Ask For Help

Do you remember the first puzzle you put together? I’m guessing it was a 5000-piece job, and it was a close-up of a fully bloomed red rose or maybe a polar bear in a snowstorm, am I right? Of course not!

Our son Max has Down syndrome, and to help him with his fine motor skills when he was just a toddler, guess how many pieces were in his first puzzles. Two! Each puzzle had just two pieces, which could be connected by sliding them together. Sounds easy... because they were. We wanted to make sure they were puzzles Max could do, and we didn’t want him getting overwhelmed and frustrated and quitting. As he got better at those puzzles, we upped his game and offered him puzzles with four pieces, more complex photos, and so on. Max still enjoys building a good puzzle, and he knows not to give up because if he gets stuck, we, his parents and sometimes his sister, are here to help.

But first, Max needs to admit he needs help. Here are some personal examples of when I had to admit my need:

• When I was on my hands and knees on our bathroom floor in excruciating pain due to kidney stones... I needed help!
• When I had a migraine so intense I didn’t care if I lived or died, and Denise had to take me to the hospital... I needed help!
• When I got stuck in the crevasse of Cape Split for over three hours with a 175-foot drop in front of me... I needed help!

And in each of these circumstances, I needed to do more than just hope help would come for me; I had to ask for it.

One of the most challenging puzzles anyone has encountered in the Bible takes place in the book of Daniel:

In chapter 2, Daniel’s king, Nebuchadnezzar, has a dream and is deeply troubled because of it (verse 1). He’s so bothered by his dream he calls on all the intelligent staff he has in his employment to explain its meaning, and here’s the catch: King Nebuchadnezzar can’t even remember his own dream! Oh, and just to make it a little more interesting (translation: impossible), if they can’t tell him the dream AND its meaning, all wise men in the city will be chopped up into pieces. AND have their homes turned into manure piles for good measure (verses 2-5).

The king’s wise men say, humanly speaking, it can’t be done (verses 10 & 11). The commander of the king’s guard comes to kill Daniel and his friends (verses 12 & 13). Daniel wisely requests a meeting with the king and buys some time (verses 14-16). He and his friends ask God for help (verses 17 & 18). The secret of the dream is revealed to Daniel, who then praises and prays to the God of Heaven (verses 19-23).

When your puzzle seems impossible...

When some pieces just don’t seem to fit...

Humbly ask God for help. You won’t be sorry you did, but you might if you don’t.