Berwick Thought for the Week: Asking for help

I’m a new member of the RNLI crew in Berwick-upon-Tweed. There’s a lot to learn about ‘saving lives at sea’, but one detail has really impressed me; the way volunteer crew members try to avoid casting blame on anyone being rescued.

There’s no finger-wagging at casualties, no angry ‘You shouldn’t have done that!’ afterwards, because asking for help is difficult at the best of times, especially if you’re expecting a ticking-off. Anyone can get into difficulty in the water.

That’s got me thinking about the times I have to ask for help, myself. It’s not easy.

We Brits are a proud lot and we like to think we’re in charge of our own lives – so admitting we’re not in control, that we don’t quite know what we were doing, is hard.

Sometimes, the problem may genuinely not even be our fault, but it still takes courage to take the first step into a food bank, a debt advice centre, to call Samaritans, or even enter a church, because doing that says, ‘I need help’.

Perhaps we expect to be judged as ‘inadequate’, although we’re simply being human.

2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul confessed to his friends in a letter, ‘I don’t understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do,’ which is all of us, sometimes! But a brave confession of need can produce a powerful step-change.

I think Paul’s confession freed him up to experience God’s forgiveness in a profound way that changed both his world, and ours.

So, if you’re in trouble, don’t let pride or shame get in the way of asking for help. Would it stop you from calling 999?