There is a particular kind of confidence available only before opening the instructions.
Picture a Saturday afternoon, a picnic table in pieces, and one person announcing, “I’ve got this. Everybody else can relax.”
Twenty minutes later, everybody is holding something.
One person has a table leg. Another has the screws. Someone is turning the instructions sideways, hoping the illustration will become more encouraging from another angle.
The box called it a two-person job. Through determined leadership, it has become six.
I recognize something of myself in that scene.
I like being useful. Give me something to fix, build, explain, or carry, and I can usually find a reason to stay busy. Receiving help requires a different kind of willingness. Someone might have a better idea. They might notice the piece I installed backward.
They might discover I needed them before I was ready to admit it.
Even service can get tangled up in that. We begin wanting to bless people, then quietly become attached to being the person who makes the blessing happen. Before long, everyone is participating in our generosity under fairly detailed supervision.
There is mercy in being able to laugh when we notice.
A laugh can loosen our grip enough to say, “You’re right. Let’s try it your way.” It gives us a way to acknowledge our limits while staying at the table with the people who have already seen them.
God knows those limits. Our dependence has never surprised Him. Yet I can spend an extraordinary amount of energy treating a need for help as though it were information I ought to keep from getting out.
Perhaps part of growing in grace is becoming easier to help.
Letting someone else read the instructions. Accepting the offered hand. Eating lunch before the project is finished because the people beside us are hungry, and the table can wait.
Eventually, there may be somewhere to sit.
For now, someone is holding the other end.
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