I Could Use a Little Help Here, Lord

Louisa Ikena reflects on asking for help through personal experience and in practical ways in prayer.

Asking for help can be incredibly difficult. In my life, I try to be as independent and self-supporting as possible. For years I resisted asking for help. Doesn’t that show weakness? Isn’t it an overall undesirable experience? It feels like asking for help is frowned upon by our culture.

Yet asking for help is part of being human. It’s part of the human experience. We are not made to “go it alone." We are made for community. In fact, we are made for community, by Community. Just as the Trinity, the Perfect Community, is our model, we are meant to be in community. The Trinity is the Perfect Community of Love. God is love (1 John 4:8). To paraphrase Venerable Fulton J. Sheen in The Divine Romance, the Father gazes in Love with the Son, and the Son gazes in Love with the Father. They sigh, and the very Breath of Love coming forth from the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. It’s a mystery, for sure, and it is our profound and ideal and blessed example of community.

I was never meant to face my perils alone, referring to Thomas Merton’s words in Thoughts in Solitude. This brings me to my current highlighted phrase, “I could use a little help here, Lord.” I am not just asking for help in a general way. I am inviting God in: right here, right now. No matter what situation I am facing, it is beneficial to pray and to acknowledge God is God and I am not. Why do I find these seemingly obvious truths so difficult to remember?

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God’s timing is not always my timing. While I do believe I routinely receive timely help, I do not assert that the timing of that help is always desirable. I usually want more and more and more now. Yet I am called to surrender that attitude. It is more important than ever to me to pray, “Thy Will, not mine, be done.”

My prayer, “I could use a little help here, Lord” invites God in, asks for the help I need, and brings me back, over and over again, to the here and now. Right here, right now is where I am meant to be. I am meant to be typing these words right here, right now, as perhaps you are meant to be reading these words in your present moment.

Lord, help me always remember to invite You in, not just every day, but in every moment of every day. Lord, help me always encounter precious reminders of Your Presence and Your Help.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:8)

I was traveling for work during my previous career in health care and needed to frequently ask for help. During one trip I kept track, inside my head, how many times in a day I said aloud, “I could use a little help here.” My record was six times during one cross-country trip, helping a client move. It was hard, but necessary for me to ask for help that many times. I needed help pushing his wheelchair, help loading and unloading the overhead bin, and help maintaining a pace that got us where we needed to be on time. If only every time I speak those words, “I could use a little help here,” a stewardess could appear promptly as she did on that trip.

Asking for help from Our Lord rarely produces the same tangible response, yet He has never let me down. Answers to my prayers are often unpredictable and unexpected, but my prayers have yet to go unanswered.

I recently learned that the name of the Israelite tribe of Judah means "praise." The Israelites would send the tribe of Judah into a battle first. What a beautiful practice! Send prayers of praise up to God first, before my battles have even begun. Every time I remember to practice this reality in prayer, I’ve experience powerful results. I have done this driving to school in the morning. I pray something like, “Lord, I invite You into this day. I could use a little help here, Lord, today. For what You are about to do, Lord, I give You Glory and Praise. Thank You for hearing this prayer and for inclining Your ear. Thank You, thank You, thank You. Amen.”

Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7a). Lord, help me keep asking for help. In all situations, great and small, I could use a little help here, Lord. Thank You for hearing me. Amen. Alleluia.

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