During our first year in Nicaragua my wife came down with some sort of virus. Most Nicaraguans don’t visit the doctor, but instead go straight to the pharmacist (a prescription is not required for most medications: you simply go to the pharmacist, explain your symptoms, and they give you the appropriate medication). She decided to take this approach instead of going to the doctor. At the time she spoke very little Spanish, so she used Google Translate to produce a “script” for her conversation with the pharmacist. She practiced this script, and must have delivered it well, because the pharmacist not only understood her, but preceded to respond rapidly in Spanish. Not wanting to let on that she had no clue what was being said, she simply nodded and said si a lot, finally leaving with three different medications. Upon arriving home, she realized she had no idea how to use them. Another interesting factor here is that they often don’t give you the finished product at the pharmacy, nor do you get written instructions. For liquid medicines, for example, they give you a powder that you have to mix with water to create the medicine. Still not wanting to ask for help, she decided to just guess when mixing the medication. As you can imagine, she ended up getting sicker from the medicine then from the virus that had originally made her ill. She learned that next time she needed to take someone to the pharmacy with her who could help translate.
I share this story because most of us hate to admit we don’t know what we are doing, and we REALLY hate to ask for help. This is especially a problem for us as men. We would rather suffer mightily then ask for help. If you think about that for a minute, that’s really a ridiculous sentiment! Yet, nearly everyday we choose to go it alone instead of asking God to help us with the many trials we face. Look at what Jesus tells us about asking for God’s help and guidance in life:
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:12-14
God desires to hear our needs in life, and God desires to help us with our needs. God never meant for us to go through life based solely on our own feeble abilities. He desires to hear us and to help us. We need to realize that it is actually VERY manly to ask for God’s help. This week, share with God all of the challenges you are facing and the struggles that you have. Stop suffering needlessly, and start asking for help from the creator, sustainer, and savior of all.
