You don't have to reach for something holding you

​ had to go to the dentist yesterday. In the grand collection of life challenges, I realize the dentist isn't the biggest one. Yet, you couldn't have convinced me of that on my drive there.

Me and the dentist have always been at odds. Not my dentist, but the all caps DENTIST.

In my anxiety driving along, I felt and heard those famous Christianese words: take it to God.

It made sense. I was going TO the dentist, which left me in nothing but unease, so no better time to take unease TO God.

That's when it hit me, we spend so much time going TO things for help in life: to the doctor, to the therapist, to the supervisor, to the loan officer, to the principal, to the gym, to the DENTIST 😢 - we spend so much time going TO help that we often forget the greatest help of all never leaves us.

The greatest gift in my life is knowing God is with me, but so many practices have trained me to believe I have to go to God when I need his help. I've become programmed to believe I have to reach out for something that refuses to let go of me.

It also made me wonder, how many times do I reach for help in this world because I forget my help is already here? How many times do I go reaching instead of accepting that I've already been reached.

I have heard it said that we are spiritual beings on a human journey. Maybe the biggest complication of that journey is how easy it is to forget that our greatest healing from human struggles is a spiritual encounter.

All human help has a finish line; this human journey does end.

But for us spiritual beings, life is only beginning. That journey is eternal. We forget that at times as we seek to survive the human journey instead of turning to the help that wants to prepare us to thrive in the spiritual life without end.

I am grateful for the gift of human help. I am privileged to be surrounded by it, to have access to it. It's a blessing.

A blessing, that is, until I come to forget that all the human help in the world is but a pebble compared to the rock I am always invited to stand on, the rock that is already here.

And if you think about it, when you stand on that giant rock, all that human help is much easier to see.

Reach out for help. Embrace it. But don't ever forget, the most helpful help of all is already embracing you.