Week 9: Helpless
Weekly Chapters: Deuteronomy 15 - 34
Passage of the Week: Deuteronomy 31:6
Adjective:
1. Unable to help oneself
2. Weak or dependent
3. Deprived of strength and power
Thesaurus:
· Defenseless
· Impotent
· Destitute
· Paralyzed
· Forlorn
· Powerless
· Exposed
Father God,
Thank You for your love. Guide me today to the message You want me to see in Your word. May Your word speak to me and give me love and correction. Father God, only You can breathe life into Your word and give me strength and renew my purpose in You.
Amen
Authentic vulnerability:
I feel helpless in different ways at different times. Helplessness starts in our childhood when we are young and impressionable. And can continue up to the teens and adulthood. Sometimes we have people in our lives who value our helplessness and use it to build on their worth. Sometimes we have people who despise our helplessness and link it to the weakness in their lives. Sometimes we cry out for those who are helpless and our lives ache for them. We can understand that helplessness can manifest itself in physical or mental impacts. A car accident can render one with physical helplessness. It may paralyze temporarily or mentally incapacitate through the permanent or temporary loss of brain function to pure trauma to one’s psyche rendering one and able to cope due to PTSD.
My helplessness is my defiance. Instead of paralyzed in fear I am paralyzed in defiance. That is my wall I have built up over time. The unacceptance of help from others, my inability to listen to others' guidance, my arrogance and insolent behavior toward correction. All of this creates helplessness by rejection-rejecting the help of intimacy and kindness.
My inability to relate to my helplessness hinders my ability to connect with God and others.
On the other spectrum are those who feel helpless to their ability, who by circumstances are unable to move forward.
What is your Authentic Truth?
Study:
Helplessness can seem foreign to some and either security or hindrance to others. We are all helpless apart from God. I fight against being helpless all the time. Like a toddler, I stand defiant over helplessness and claim firmly that I can do it, all on my own. I do not need help. But, then there are others in which the feeling of helplessness overcomes the day, engulfing their world. Whatever feelings that we have around helplessness our saving grace is the word of God. Seeing God’s guidance through His word looking for His transformational grace.
God’s passages in Deuteronomy are full of instruction and guidance. God reminds us in Deuteronomy 26:3-11 that we were enslaved. Israel was a slave to Egypt, just as we may be enslaved to others, our body, and our mind, today. God reminds us that He is caring for us and our needs if we follow Him. God’s instructions to the Israelites were full of if/then statements to guide our being. If we follow Him and His teachings, He will continue to bless us and keep us. If we follow Him and share His blessings with our children, He will provide us with spiritual blessings (milk and honey). God provides His word as instruction and guidance in our lives. He parlayed His word through His followers as a means to instruct generations and beyond.
Feelings of helplessness can be demoralizing and debilitating. And the sense of powerlessness can take over body and mind. While self-talk further plays into a feeling of loss and exposure.
How do we overcome feelings of helplessness? By relying on God’s word, reading God’s word, and meditating on His Word, we can open ourselves to God and His desires in our lives. Further, if we overcome a desire to just accumulate knowledge or read His word as a checklist if we do not interpret God’s word to support our feelings, and instead we use God’s word to identify and correct our feelings we will overcome some of the emotions that hurt our ability to grow. Let God‘s word breathe into your world, your thoughts, and let it correct your feelings to get to a better place. Second, open yourself up to others. Seek out guidance or counseling. Find someone who can call you out, what you’re ignoring and pushing down. Sometimes a therapist or trusted friend can help work through these feelings and call us on our insecurity. It is the same as going through a physical or occupational therapist after an accident. A therapist knows what our body and mind can and cannot do to get us up to the next step.
Father God,
Thank You for opening my eyes to my helplessness. My inability to see my helplessness and how it infiltrates my life is something I need to expose. Sometimes I block my sight and wear blinders: I need You to open my eyes. Thank You for Your overwhelming blessings and Your support. Just like the Israelites sometimes I become complacent and forget that I need Your help. Thank You for providing situations and others to guide me.
Amen.
Homework:
· What events bring on feelings of helplessness? Was it a one-time event or has it been going on for years? Since childhood? Is there a person that brings these feelings to light? Or was it a one-time event that brought on these feelings?
· Pray that God will open your eyes to your version of helplessness. Whether it is your tendency to block out others or refuse the help of others, or the opposite where your feelings of helplessness may be debilitating, pray that God opens your eyes to the help that will foster your self-discovery and assist you and pinpointing the cause so that you can overcome your version of helplessness.
