God told Jeremiah, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”

I’ve told hundreds of people in all kinds of situations, “Happy to help, just let me know.”

When offering condolences, we often say, “If you need anything, anything at all, just ask.”

The offer’s out there. I truly believe we’re still in a giving and caring culture, that there are people who would give you the shirt off their back. When I offer to serve others, I mean it, and most others do, too.

So why is it so hard to ask for help?

Pride, Assumptions, Guilt, Imposition, and some more Pride. There may be other factors, like you don’t even know what you need, just that you’re in need…or that you keep meaning to ask but procrastinate too much.

Once, I built a fence. It was an electric fence on my farm, nothing fancy. It ended up being about twice the average city lot, I’d guess. To make this pig pen fence, however, was an incredible amount of work. It required blazing a trail through locust tree, poison ivy, greenbrier and more. It took days and days to clear it, to drive fence posts, to fight the heat.

“Many hands make light work.” I know this to be true. Serving others feels good—I have claimed that my entire adult life. “Serving others serves you.”

So I knew all that, going into it. I knew it would have been (almost) fun to play the radio and shoot the breeze while hacking through the wild weeds.

Yet, despite all I knew, I did not ask anyone for help.

In that case, it was mostly a matter of imposition. I think much of my “not asking” comes to that. I don’t want to be burdensome. I don’t want to demand too much from people who already have little time to spare. In a nutshell, I don’t want to be “that guy.”

However, I think I’m about to turn over a new leaf. I have life events happening now that could use an extra hand. Thanks for talking me into asking, my blog audience.

Stay tuned for the results of this experiment in asking.