Can You Help Me?
December 31, 2021 by Charlotte Riegel
Filed under Daily Devotions, Family
By Charlotte Riegel –
While visiting my son’s family, the grandchildren pulled out a bucket of play dough and set to work creating various wondrous things. Lilah, the thoughtful one, quietly began playing with the number molds, filling them, digging out the play dough and lining up the numbers. I wondered if she would soon be setting up a mathematical equation for me to solve.
Silas dug through the bucket looking for anything he could use to make an action figure. He eventually settled on a dinosaur mold that sort of looked like a turtle with holes in the shell for the spikes of a dinosaur. What surprised me was his use of the mold. Instead of filling it to create his beast, he began scraping the play dough across the holes, creating crumbles of play dough, or perhaps sand for his dino to walk in. At any rate, that’s all he did for nearly an hour and I silently wondered if perhaps he might become a chef one day, grating cheese and chocolate.
Zoe sat with a few pieces of play dough and some molds but seemed at a loss as to what she should do with them. “Gramma, can you help me?” she pleaded.
“Of course I can help you. What would you like me to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well then,” I continued, “if you don’t know what you want me to do, how will you know I have helped you when I’m done?”
She took items out of the bucket and put them back in, then left the table apparently disinterested in play dough activities, and began playing with her dolls.
The next day when I felt at a loss with a circumstance facing me, I cried out to God, “Can you help me with this, Lord?” I immediately heard my play dough activity words to Zoe echo back to me.
“What do you want me to do for you?”
I have never doubted that God can help me, but if I’m not specific with my requests, how will I know that He answered my prayer?
PRAYER: Lord, today I need Your help with organizing my day appropriately to accomplish all that needs doing. And, it would be absolutely fabulous if You helped me succeed without becoming distraught, frustrated, or frantic. Amen.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see” (Mark 10:51 NIV).
Charlotte Riegel is a freelance writer recently moved from a large metropolitan city to a wee rural community in Western Canada. Some call it retirement. She calls it 're-tire' ment as she explores new avenues of written and visual expression while assisting her husband in establishing a business in the tourist industry.