I am on a journey. But this journey is not a linear one as I first thought. On my journey of trying to become more like God created me to be I thought I was doing pretty well. I had a plan. I had a direction. I had no idea.

I’ve started seeing a friend of mine, a Naturopathic Doctor, for some immunity issues I’ve been dealing with since the birth of my daughter a little over a year ago. Nothing serious, just a winter of seemingly endless colds and flus and everything that came around. I was uncomfortable with this process for a couple of reasons. It wasn’t that I did not trust my friend. She’s an amazing, godly woman and God is using her in great ways to change me and help me. It wasn’t that I’m uncomfortable with Naturopathic medicine, I’m a fan.

I’m uncomfortable with receiving. I’ve talked about this before and it’s not a new idea to me but I guess I didn’t really realize the depth of my discomfort. It reared its ugly head again during this process. I am going through a journey where I am called to rely on others to feed into me spiritually, physically, and emotionally and I am embarrassed and uncomfortable and…gunshy, I guess.

I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life where my vulnerabilities and imperfections made me disposable to some people. There have been times in my life when I haven’t lived up to expectations and been discarded or devalued. My value to those people was what I was able to give them, and when it was discovered that I needed filling, needed a listening ear or encouragement, they bailed.  This hasn’t been the only pattern in my life, by far. But there have been enough people, likely only enough to count on one hand, to make this an inner flinch for me. To need is to be less valuable. To need is to be less useful. To need means that you are not needed or wanted. Your use is measured by what you can give and give and give.

I’m an achiever and this has, in my head, determined my value to people for a long time. If my gifts, talents, education, skills, listening ear, information giving, shoulder to cry on can be of use, I felt I was doing my job. But, when I began this process and learned that for healing to occur I needed to be open to receive, it stopped my in my tracks.

I am used to the idea that we go to God for filling and being recharged and I have heard, as I’m sure many of you have, that God is the only filling we need. I think he is, to some extent, but the more I learn and listen to godly people the more I am beginning to think that some of the teaching I received in the past and some of my own interpretations are faulty.

I was reminded by my doctor friend that God uses others to help fill us. We are created for community, not just so that we can serve but also so we can be filled. I’m good with the serving part, not with the receiving part. Because, what if the balance is off? What if I’m too needy? What if I become a burden? Having others need me is fine, but heaven forbid I need from others.

But this isn’t how God designed me and isn’t how he designed the church. When I don’t accept help and healing and direction from others, for whatever good or noble reason, then I’m not fulfilling my function in the body of Christ. I’m not giving others opportunity to be used by God to speak into my life and I’m not letting God use other people to help me grow. Not only do I need to seek to serve other people, I need to be vulnerable enough to be served by others. This means I need to let them into the hard places, the messy places, the places that I don’t have figured out yet. The places of hurt to be healed, places of anger to be tempered, stubbornness to be made malleable. All of these things keep me from growing in Christ as I ought to be.

God uses other people to fill me and to help me grow. Sometimes the growth is painful. Sometimes the growth requires speaking truth into incidents in your past. Sometimes growth means letting other people tell you where you’re wrong, but also tell you where you’re right. It is selfish of me to not let the Church shape and mould me through other believers because if I’ve decided that I don’t need help or am not worthy of help then I’m not being refined to a person who is more able to serve God and be transformed by him.

It takes courage to let others help you because that means admitting that you are not perfect, are not always completely whole, are not a mean-lean-energizer-bunny-serving-machine, and that you need them just as much as they need you. What I’m discovering is that when you let others help you they are blessed. They feel of more value to you because you are making space for them to use their gifts and how God has created them to speak into your life. We all know how nice it is to be needed, we just sometimes forget to allow others that feeling.

Ephesians 4:11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.