Jesus, Help Me / Guest Post by Jamie Jelinek

These are words I’ve frequently prayed, as I’m sure you have too. The context of that prayer can vary: “Help me with my job,” “Help me with my marriage,” or maybe “Help me with my sickness.”

At certain moments, these prayers have led me to ask myself, “Why do I want Him to help me with this?” Most commonly, it’s because there’s a desire for comfort or satisfaction. We want Him to help us through a challenge or succeed in something because we believe it will make our lives easier. It can also be because we are hurting, physically or emotionally, and want Him to heal us or fix a relationship that has brought us angst or pain.

There is nothing wrong with asking Jesus for help. He invites us to bring our needs to Him. But I’m learning to ask whether I want only the answer or a deeper relationship with Him.

If He does what I ask, then what? Is my life complete? Am I now happy?

When we take the time to think through this, we begin to realize that even when life is going well, there is still a longing that our circumstances can’t satisfy. We hear of athletes and working professionals reaching the pinnacles of their careers, whether becoming a CEO or winning a Stanley Cup or Super Bowl, only to discover that the satisfaction was short-lived. Ultimately, they longed for more.

I think this is our souls’ cry for something more long-standing and, dare I say, eternal, which is Jesus.

Our purpose isn’t found in the short-lived resolution of our problems or in our life achievements. The appropriate context of our lives is eternity. When we have this eternal perspective, our daily issues still matter, but our mission for Jesus begins to emerge as primary.

If we can grasp this and start pursuing Jesus more frequently, we can begin to experience peace even when uncertainty remains. The question “What happens if this fails or isn’t resolved?” becomes part of a Kingdom-minded perspective where we learn to surrender the results to Jesus. We want His will to be done and for everyone around us to experience Him.

We begin to rest in the sovereignty of Jesus, acknowledging that He is in control of every detail of our lives. That doesn’t make uncomfortable or painful experiences easy. But we can trust Him to work through those circumstances for our good and the purposes of His Kingdom.

“Failure” in the eyes of man can look different within an eternal perspective. Let me ask you this: Would you accept an outcome the world calls “failure” if it meant that someone came to know Jesus, dedicated their life to Him, and experienced freedom?

There can often be Kingdom success rooted in what the world would define as failure. There will also be moments when we succeed by the world’s standards. As we pursue Jesus wholeheartedly, we begin to measure our lives by our closeness to Him and how we are serving Him and loving others the way He loves us.

One of the ways we can start doing this is by simply asking Jesus for more of Him. Sometimes we get distracted by our hearts’ short-term desires, and we miss out on the beauty of who He is in and of Himself.

The song “Nothing Else” by Cody Carnes captures this beautifully. Its message is a desire for Jesus Himself, beyond the blessings or answers He can give. I’d encourage you to listen to the song and let that desire become your own prayer to Jesus.

As often as we are able, we can ask Jesus for more of Him. And when we pray for His help with the challenges life brings, we can bring those requests within the context of eternity.

As we release the results to Him and understand that things may not always go the way we want, we can experience a peace that allows us to rest. The outcomes matter deeply to us, but they no longer have to determine our peace, purpose, or confidence in Him.

Even when the outcome feels like failure, we can trust Jesus to work through it for our good and His purposes. We’ll desire that His will be done.

We’ll start to live WITH Jesus, which is something we’ll carry into eternity.