I Can Do It Myself

John 5:30 "By myself I can do nothing"

When my daughter was very young and learning to tie her shoes, "No momma, I can do it by myself," was her cry as I made my way toward her in attempts to help her. She would twist her tongue and contort her face as she tried for long stretches of time to get her shoes tied. In the beginning, she eventually realized she had made a mess of her shoestrings or was not making any headway, so she looked my way. I could tell that her pride was having its way with her as she was him-hawing around until either I asked if she needed help again; I assumed her frustration would eventually get the best of her thus leading her to seek me. (little baby girl ‘sigh’)


Yes, we as Christians struggle with our own issues, our own life, and our own so-called problems. We will go through seasons or long stretches of time where we make a total mess of our life or the situation at hand. And then as we begin to realize what a catastrophic situation we have created, in which we then take a step back to evaluate. Oh, at first our pride is a major hurdle for us. We sit there thinking we have it all under control and that we really can get ourselves out of this. (Bigger ‘sigh’)

But then as things around us crumble, we kick the dirt, and look around, mostly at the ground. We are in trouble. Now we slowly look up (not to be too obvious), we look toward our Abba. Maybe He will notice that I’m looking His way. Maybe He will ask me if I need help that way I won’t look so bad (the pride monster). After all, I didn’t come running for help.

I stand there waiting, looking. Sometimes, He will. Sometimes, He will actually come running.

And then there are those times that I must move past my pride because that is the lesson in itself.

But one thing for sure, He will always be there. And He will not interfere until we ask Him for His help.

My precious baby girl finally did come over to me ( I chose to wait for her) and sat in my lap and together we learned to tie her shoes in a very short time. She learned by age four and was very proud of her accomplishment. And once she learned that I could teach her, and that she did need my help, the lesson became easy. And on she went to another life experience.

We too can learn from our Papa. We cannot do life on our own as we are not designed to.

If only we crawl up in His lap and watch... listen.... learn....


In Him,