Learning to Ask for Help Without Shame

Why do we struggle to ask for help?

For weeks, blisters have covered my hands, making them red, swollen, and hot. It hurts to touch anything. I’ve tried everything I know to help them. Usually, I can bring myself out of a flare-up before it gets too bad. But not this time—nothing I tried helped.

Instead of going to the doctor for help, I continued to suffer. Yesterday, it hit me: I was choosing to allow myself to suffer by not asking for help.

So, I started questioning why. I went on a walk and talked to the Lord. God showed me on my walk that my beliefs about asking for help are not correct. I see it as something bad when it’s not. To change this about myself, I need to reprogram my mindset about asking for help. I will do this with God’s truth of the scriptures and prayer.

It’s one thing to read the Bible, and it’s another thing entirely to believe the scriptures and apply them to our lives.

My first step is to find out what I believe about asking for help now. So I researched the reasons people don’t ask for help. It generated a list, and as I read through it, three of the reasons resonated with me. This is where this post gets really vulnerable. I’m going to share my reasons with you:

  • I believe that I deserve to suffer.
  • I believe that it is shameful for me to ask for help.
  • I am too independent.

Naming these beliefs is the first step to breaking their power. Now, I want to replace them with God’s truth.

While I don’t know exactly how these limiting beliefs got programmed into me, I want so badly to change them. I’m tired of hurting myself. So, I am inviting God into the process.

Just typing this out, I see the enemy all over it. He harms us by getting us to harm ourselves. He tries to get us to believe that we are not good enough, not worthy of love and connection with others, and that we deserve to suffer alone. God’s truth is the opposite.

Here are some beautiful verses on help:

Mark 9:23-24 (KJV)
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Isaiah 41:10 (KJV)
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Hebrews 13:6 (KJV)
So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 (KJV)
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

John 15:16 (KJV)
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Psalm 37:4-5 (KJV)
4 Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
5 Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

Psalm 146:5 (KJV)
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

Sweet friends, it brings us happiness to let God help us and to let Him be our hope. We don’t have to carry everything alone.

What belief about asking for help do you need to surrender to God today?

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