270. How to Be A Multiplying Christian, Seek Help, Don't Run From It

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In this episode, I continue my series on becoming a multiplying disciple.  I talk about resisting the natural tendency to run from getting help when we need it the most.  I talk about why we do this and how we can seek help instead of run from it.

 

Transcript

I remember listening to a lesson at the 1995 world missions seminar in Johannesburg, South Africa.  The speaker was sharing about good news around the world.  One church was lifted up for baptizing hundreds of people and becoming a church of thousands.  Over the next few years I heard conflicting reports from that same church.  Then I heard the church’s leader had been removed.  It seems the actual membership was hundreds of people short of what had been reported.  When I heard that I thought, what happened?  How could that happen?  How could people not know how many people were in the church?  I’m sure there were a number of reasons for that leadership failure, but I would guess that primary among them would be that the leader or leadership team didn’t seek help early enough and may have run from getting the help it needed before the problem became so severe.

“Where are you?”

This failure to seek help goes back to the garden. 

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.  ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  Genesis 3:6-9

When offered that first temptation, centuries of misery could have been avoided by asking for help and advice from God before chomping into the apple.  Once the sin was committed, shame, pride and fear kept them from turning to the one being who could help them.  God had to ask, “Where are you?” 

This is why we struggle to get the help we need from God and others so that we can grow and get back on our feet after a set back.  Shame, pride, embarrassment, laziness and the distorted thinking that comes from these problems forces us into isolation.  We delude ourselves into thinking that if we run from the problem, from God and from other people, the problem will disappear.  It rarely does.  In the case of that first sin, it quickly compounded and affects us today, thousands of years later.

During finals week of my first semester at UC Berkeley if faced five finals in two days.  On the second day I arrived at my statistics final after little sleep.  The previous day I had rear-ended a car on the way to campus, showed up to the wrong building for my first test, ran out of gas on the way home from campus and spent two hours waiting for the tow truck.  It seems God had designed this two-day gauntlet to humble me and prepare me to become a Christian.  The first half of the statistics final was closed book.  I had difficulty answering the questions.  My only solace was that the second half of the test was open books and open notes.  When the professor said “start!” for the second half, I dug through my backpack for my book and notes.  They weren’t there.  I had forgotten them in my dorm room.  I struggled through that 45 minutes as I watched those around me find the answers they needed in their notes and books.  At the end of the test I went up to the professor and told him I had forgotten my notes.  In his heavily accented, Eastern European English, he said, “Why didn’t you ask me for help?  I would have given you my notes and my book!”  After he said that, I felt even worse.  On top of my massive failure was the knowledge that I could have avoided it by simply asking for help rather than sitting quietly in my shame, embarrassment and self-hatred.

Unfortunately, too many of us repeat my mistake in a multitude of situations.  We kick ourselves later for not asking for assistance when it could have made all the difference.  Growing disciples grow because they push past the fear, shame and embarrassment to ask for help.  Here are some simple things you can do to accelerate your spiritual growth.

First, laugh at failures.  View them as simply part of the process of growing.  Everyone faces little and big setbacks.  Satan wants you to continue thinking that you shouldn’t be making mistakes and that “you should know better by now.”  That kind of thinking will keep you isolated and cut off from life-giving help.

Don’t place others on a pedestal.  In addition to thinking we shouldn’t be making mistakes is the equally mistaken assumption that others don’t struggle with weaknesses like we do.  Have you every talked to an older person in the fellowship, and felt like you couldn’t talk to them about struggles you might be facing like lust, anger or coarse language.  It’s hard to conceive of that kindly older person ever having an impure thought.  And yet, they were young once and faced the exact same trials you are going through.

Go to seminars and conferences.  Whatever you want to grow in, there is a conference that will help you get there.  It might be a live conference or an online webinar, but there is a way to learn from others.  One growth expert I read recommends that we spend 3% of our income on personal development and seminars.  Too often I see people staying home, stuck in their rut because they don’t want to spend the money on their growth.  What a waste!  You don’t know what you’re missing.  I started a podcast in 2020 and recorded over 250 podcasts.  Earlier this year, I felt like I needed to take my skills to a new level.  I saw my listenership decline and I didn’t know why?  I went to a podcasting conference in Los Angeles.  What I learned there blew me away.  The first thing I learned was that everyone else had seen their listening downloads decline by as much as 60% and it had nothing to do with the podcaster’s performance.  The decline was due to an algorithm adjustment Apple had made on their podcast platform.  I was so happy and relieved to know that I wasn’t just tanking because of doing a bad job.  Prior to going to the conference I had thoughts of shutting down the podcast.  On top of that, the classes that were taught gave me at least five great ideas for taking my podcast to the next level.  I never would have known those things by sitting at home feeling sorry for myself.

Face down your weak areas.  I’ve worked out in a gym since college.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of my inspirations.  However, I’m still not much stronger than I was 20 or thirty years ago.  Then I asked for help from a physical trainer.  I shared my faith with him and then asked him to train me.  I’ve seen tons of progress in the past 5 months.  Why?  He is making me do things in the gym that either I didn’t know to do or that I didn’t want to do.  He helps me break mental and physical barriers.  Prior to hiring him, I would follow the same comfortable routine I had followed for decades.  He shattered that cozy pattern.  If you want to grow in any area, take a look at your weak areas and get help on them.  Any area that you have experienced a plateau or lack of progress is an area that could benefit from outside help.

Read books.  I’ve said it before and will repeat it till I die.  Learn from others how they overcame the challenges you are facing right now.  Whatever you are facing has most likely been written about, talked about or discussed in detail.  I love the story of how Elon Musk started his rocket company, SpaceX.  With no prior knowledge or rocket science, Musk started reading books on the subject and asked questions of the rocket scientists he hired to start his company.  It only took him two years to become an expert in the field and get his company off the ground. 

There is nothing you can’t grow in, become or achieve.  All you need is the willingness to ask for help, suppress Satan’s attempts to shame you into silence, and read, watch or listen to those willing to help you get where you want to be, a multiplying disciple.