God Can't Make You Do It

Did you ever try to feed your baby brother or sister when they just naturally didn't want to eat? Rough, isn't it? They clamp their little jaws down tight, stick out their tongue, turn their head or use other tricks to keep food out. Then if you do force it in they refuse to swallow it. We are many times the size of a baby, but we can't make him do what he doesn't want to do.

We have to want something or we will resist it all the way. When Marilyn changed schools in the middle of the semester she had trouble with arithmetic. She was all mixed up. The teacher saw her trouble and tried to help her, but she said she'd work it out by herself, thank you. She became angry at everyone who tried to help her.

Finally one of her new friends got next to her and made her see that no one could help her if she refused to allow herself to be helped. After all, the girl told Marilyn, we all need help and it is no disgrace to be mixed up over something we don't understand.

As soon as Marilyn got the "chip off her shoulder" and saw that her problem was her own fault she let others come in and help her. Pride and stubbornness cause us a lot of trouble and unhappiness, and we miss a lot of fun when we shut ourselves up in our shell.

No matter how great our need is, whether it be food, love, or good advice, we have to open the door from the inside. No one—friends, parents, or even God—can come into us if we do not admit that we need them and then open the way for them to come in.

Keep me from being too proud, o God, to receive help from you or any of my other friends when I need it.