Little Wren Writes

I think am very good at being needed.

I am considerably less good at needing. These are, apparently, different skills.

Give me someone else’s problem and I am ready. Do you need a lift? A meal? Someone to organise something? A listening ear? A cup of tea? An unnecessarily detailed plan with headings and colour coded schedules? Excellent – I am your woman.

But ask me, “What do you need?” and suddenly I have forgotten every word in the English language.

“Oh, nothing. I’m fine.” (I’m probably not fine).

I don’t think I’m alone in this. There is something strangely vulnerable about need. Need means admitting there is something I cannot provide for myself. It means dependence. It means allowing somebody else to see the gap between what I can manage and what I actually require. And I don’t particularly enjoy gaps. I’d much rather be capable. Helpful. Useful. The person carrying the bags rather than the person asking someone else to grab one. Sometimes I’ll keep carrying them long after it has become objectively ridiculous.

“Do you want some help?” “No, I’ve got it!”

Meanwhile I have twelve bags hanging from each arm, the milk is making a break for freedom, I’ve dropped my keys, and one finger has gone completely numb.
But thank you. I HAVE GOT IT.

(Apparently independence can be a surprisingly stupid hill that I like to die on.)

I think part of the problem is that being needed feels good. It gives me a role. It tells me I matter. Someone needs something and I can provide it. Lovely. Clear. Comfortable.

Needing someone else reverses the equation. Now I have to receive. And receiving is vulnerable. Because what if I ask and they say no?

What if I’m too much?
What if my needs become annoying?
What if they help me and I can’t immediately repay them?
What if they discover that underneath the capable exterior is a person who sometimes has absolutely no idea what she’s doing?

So sometimes it feels safer not to ask. I’ll just manage. Push through. Work it out. Keep going.

Which works remarkably well…until it doesn’t.

I have always been the one to think of others’ needs before my own. From as young as 4 I remember thinking about what others need and how I can be that person. I’ve built my life on being needed. But I’ve now been faced with seasons where I’ve been forced to confront how much I need other people.

Not theoretically. Actually.

I’ve needed people to drive me places. Feed me. Sit with me. Help me make decisions. Remind me of things. Tell me when I’m being unreasonable. Make me laugh. Pray when I haven’t known what to pray. Do practical things I simply didn’t have the capacity to do. I’ve needed people to notice what I couldn’t say.

I’ve needed people to stay.

And I haven’t always liked that. I mean, am I grateful?

Deeply.

Am I comfortable with needing others?

Absolutely not.

Because being the helper gives you a certain amount of control. Being helped requires trust. You have to let someone else carry something. You have to admit that you cannot do everything yourself. Which, devastatingly, turns out to be true.

The strange thing is that the Bible has never been particularly interested in our fantasy of total independence. From the very beginning, God says,

“It is not good for the man to be alone.”

Before sin. Before everything went wrong. Need wasn’t introduced by the fall. Human beings were created for relationship. We were always supposed to need God. We were always supposed to need one another. That’s not a design flaw. It’s the design.

I find that both comforting and mildly annoying. Because I would occasionally prefer God’s plan for my flourishing to involve me being completely self-sufficient, emotionally stable, spiritually mature and able to assemble all IKEA furniture without assistance. Apparently He had other ideas.

Then Jesus comes along and says: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

I’ve heard that command hundreds of times and have taught it a hundred times more. But I’ve reflected that usually the emphasis lands on:

“Love your neighbour.”

Fair enough. That’s the command. Look outward. Serve. Give. Notice people. Care about the vulnerable. Love the difficult person. Cross the road towards someone who needs you.

But there’s a tiny phrase attached:

“as yourself…”

Jesus seems to assume that care doesn’t only move in one direction. I am a neighbour too. I am also a person with limits. A body that needs sleep. A mind that needs rest. A heart that needs friendship. A soul that needs God.

Loving other people does not require pretending I have no needs of my own. In fact, I’m learning (in sometimes brutal ways) that ignoring my needs doesn’t necessarily make me more loving. Sometimes it just makes me exhausted. Or resentful. Or overwhelmed. Or crying because somebody asked one perfectly reasonable question at the wrong moment.

Which is generally a sign that perhaps the problem began several hours – or several weeks – earlier.

There’s another story about neighbours that I love.
A man asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”, and Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. We usually imagine ourselves as the Samaritan. That’s understandable. He’s the one we’re supposed to imitate. Notice the wounded person. Stop. Move towards him. Bandage the wounds. Pay the cost. Love across boundaries. Be a neighbour.

But I’ve been wondering what happens when I’m not the Samaritan. What happens when I’m the person lying beside the road? I don’t particularly like that role. He contributes absolutely nothing to his rescue. He doesn’t get himself halfway to the inn. He doesn’t say, “Thanks mate, I’ll take it from here.”

He is carried.
Someone else pays.
Someone else rearranges their plans.
Someone else bears the inconvenience of his need.
Sometimes loving my neighbour means stopping beside the road.
Sometimes it means admitting: Today, I’m the one on it.

That’s harder than it sounds. Because receiving love can feel like owing something. If you help me, I should help you. If you buy lunch, I’ll get the next one. If you carry me through something difficult, I should find some way to make it up to you.

We like balance. We like keeping the accounts tidy.

Grace is terrible for that. Grace refuses to keep the spreadsheet balanced. Sometimes you receive something you cannot repay. Sometimes someone loves you because they love you.

That’s it. No invoice forthcoming. No loyalty points system. No repayment schedule.

Just love.

I think learning to receive that from people has taught me something about receiving from God. Because my relationship with God begins with need – not usefulness. I don’t come to Jesus with an impressive resume and ask where I can assist.

I come empty-handed.
I need forgiveness.
I need grace.
I need mercy.
I need rescue.
I need Him.

Christianity begins with the deeply undignified admission:

I cannot save myself.

And I think part of me will always resist that. I’d quite like to contribute. Maybe salvation could be a group assignment? Jesus does most of it and I make the PowerPoint?

No.

Grace says:

Receive.

That’s humbling. But it’s also an enormous relief.
Because if my relationship with God begins with need, then need cannot possibly be something shameful. Jesus Himself lived a human life of dependence. He was carried as a baby. Fed by others. Welcomed into people’s homes. Supported by friends. He asked a woman for a drink. He let people minister to Him. And on the night before He died, in Gethsemane, He asked His closest friends to stay with Him.

“Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Jesus knew what it was to ask people to be near.

Need is not the opposite of strength. Sometimes admitting need takes far more courage than pretending we don’t have any.

One of the biggest things I’ve been learning over the last few months is that allowing people to help me can actually be a way of loving them.

When I refuse every offer of help, I might think I’m protecting people from inconvenience. Sometimes I’m actually refusing them the opportunity to love and serve me.

I know how meaningful it is when somebody trusts me enough to say, “Actually, yes. I could use some help.”

Why would I assume other people never feel the same? Why do I assume I don’t deserve to be loved too? Community can’t exist if everyone insists on being the giver.

Somebody has to receive the casserole.

Perhaps this can be my most important theological contribution so far.

For the body of Christ to function, somebody has to take the casserole.

Of course, healthy need doesn’t mean expecting one person to become everything. No human being can carry that. We need community. Different people. Different gifts. Different kinds of relationships. I need a strict mother figure and a gentle mother figure; I need a wise mentor and a ‘let’s go shopping’ mentor. I need a friend who sits quietly and doesn’t say much, and a friend who wants to go on wild adventures at night for ice cream or stand at a lookout.

And ultimately there are needs in me that no person can meet. No amount of human love can carry the weight of being God. That’s not what neighbours are for. But God has chosen, remarkably often, to express His care through ordinary people. People with hands that cook or cars to drive. People who listen, who pray, who turn up. People who say, “I’ve got this bit. You don’t have to carry it today.”

Maybe that’s one of the ways God answers our need. Not always by making us suddenly strong enough to do everything ourselves. Sometimes by giving us a neighbour.

I’m trying to become more comfortable with both sides of the road. I want to be the person who notices. Who stops. Who gives. Who carries. Who loves my neighbour well.

But I also want to learn how to say: “Yes, actually. I do need help.” Without apologising seventeen times. Without immediately planning how to repay it. Without believing my need makes me a burden.

Just receiving.

Because I was never created to be completely self-sufficient. I was created to need God. I was created for community.

I was created to carry others sometimes…and to be carried sometimes too.

And maybe that’s what being neighbours really looks like. Not a community of people who have no needs. But a community where nobody has to pretend they don’t.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” 
Galatians 6:2