Cyber column by Berry D. Simpson: Thanks for asking

Posted: 3/17/06

CYBER COLUMN: Thanks for asking

By Berry D. Simpson

The other night, Cyndi was at home working on the computer, printing invitations for a church media ministry banquet, when she asked if I would stuff invitations and stamp envelopes. Later, after midnight, after we finished the project, she apologized: “I’m sorry to ask you to put down your book and help, and then you had to stay up so late. I know you already had your own projects to do without having to help me with mine.”

I said: “You and I are not easy people to help. We always want to do everything ourselves. We both maintain high standards, and we love to be creative, and that’s seldom a group thing, and we try to give each other space to live our own lives. Neither of us wants to be clingy or high-maintenance. So I am grateful for a chance to help you. You don’t ask often enough.”

OK, I’ll admit I’m not usually that articulate at midnight, but during the envelope-stuffing project I was watching TV, and it left my brain with plenty of available RAM to think about why we help each other when we have other things to do.

Through our years together, I’ve tried to get better at showing Cyndi I love her. Nowadays, I also spend a lot of energy trying to understand how to love my son and daughter and new son-on-law in their lives as young adults. But I spend very little energy learning how to receive love from them.

Giving is easier that receiving.

My core assumption about most things is that it’s all up to me, and I just need to do better. Yet my attempts to be self-sufficient (so I won’t be any trouble to anyone else), making myself more lovable, or so I hoped, meant I was shutting myself off from love.

I have a friend who serves as a role model for me in this regard—a role model of who I don’t want to be. They are involved in so many things and determined to be in charge of everything and never ask for help, it’s impossible to get close to them. They are so self-sufficient they are impenetrable. I think it’s actually a conscious method they use to keep people from getting close. Staying too busy, without showing any personal needs of their own, is simply armor plating they use to keep anyone—including God—from looking too close.

The same thing happens when some young adults are so anxious to prove their independence they can’t admit to any needs in their life. Makes it is hard to know how to love them.

I was reading a book published by Navpress titled TrueFaced: Trust God and Others With Who You Really Are, and it posed this question: Why did God create us with needs?

The answer? “Without needs we cannot experience love—we cannot know when we are being loved. … Sadly, if we cannot identify our needs, we cannot know love. If we deny we have needs, we will not experience love. If we withhold our needs, we can’t receive the love others have for us.”

Before reading this, I’d never connected my needs with being lovable.

I wondered if that was the problem the Rich Young Ruler had when he asked Jesus, “What else can I do?” I think the young man had unlimited generosity and capacity to do good things with his life, and I’m sure he was sincere and would’ve done anything Jesus asked. Except, when Jesus asked him to give away all his wealth and simply follow, the man couldn’t do it. I always thought he was afraid to give up his money and influence, but now I wonder if his hesitancy was about needs. Maybe Jesus knew he couldn’t show love to this man, and this man couldn’t receive love in return, until the man understood how needy he was. As long as he thought of himself as the great benefactor who took care of everyone else and had no needs of his own, no one could love him. Including Jesus.

But exposing our needs to one another is a risky thing. Instead of loving us, people may take advantage of those same needs. Cyndi talks about this a lot—how can she risk being vulnerable to other people who have the potential to hurt her? Only because she knows God is keeping her safe. Trusting God frees our hearts to experience his safe, constant, intimate sufficiency.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland. You can contact him through e-mail at berry@stonefoot.org.