Help! I Need Somebody.

Do you recognize those words? Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody. Help, you know I need someone. Help! In 1965 those lyrics gave The Beatles yet another #1 hit in both the U.S. and the U.K. They were written by John Lennon at a time when he was struggling to deal with the rapid rise of success. "I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for 'Help'," Lennon later told a magazine. Those words were the "first crack in the protective shell" that Lennon had built around himself, wrote Ian MacDonald.

Recently I've been reading and teaching from the book Life's Healing Choices by John Baker. Interestingly Baker points out that those very words are the doorway to a life-changing journey toward healing and wholeness. In fact they are absolute requirements to experiencing freedom from what Rick Warren calls the "hurts, hang-ups, and habits" that keep us stressed out, drained, depressed, and hopeless.

For all of us, that act of saying "Help! I need somebody" is an acknowledgement that we're not really super heroes and that we don't have all the answers. They bring to light what we work hard to keep hidden - that we're really broken, inside at least, and that we can't fix ourselves. They declare what God and everyone else around us already know - that we're really not God.

I'm learning that this idea of playing God is as old as the Garden of Eden. In the beginning God said to man about Eden (I'm paraphrasing here of course) 'All of this is for you. Enjoy. Have at it. Just one thing I ask. So that I know and you know you're choosing to love and obey me, stay away from this one tree. Just the one! Don't eat its fruit. But all the rest is yours.' Then the enemy, Satan, appeared and said - 'It's ok. Take a bit. It's good. And if you eat it you'll be like God.' So they ate it. And we've been trying to be God ever since.

"Help! I Need Somebody" is a great declaration that we finally realize we're not God and that we really do need Him to guide our lives. It is the starting line for every kind of healing and recovery journey. Of course it's one thing to acknowledge our need. It's another thing entirely to be willing to receive help. The world is filled with people who know they are hurting and empty but just aren't ready to receive the hope they need.

But just uttering those words can convey a willingness to change direction. When spoken with broken awareness of our desperate need they act as an invitation to change us, to make us different, to make us whole.

When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in anyway. But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured, Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors.

And that, of course, is the point of the help and the hope that God offers. It sets us on a new path, in a new direction, with new life in Him. Jesus repeatedly said "cast your cares on me," follow my ways and learn of me," "I've come to give you new life."

Help! I Need Somebody are the words that help us begin to change course, to stop pretending, to stop hiding, and to stop the hurting. They are words of pause and of openness. They are words of surrender. But they are also words of acceptance, of attention, of willingness to take one step and then another and another in a new direction. They are words that open up closed doors and allow the healing grace of God to penetrate deep into our pain, our sorrows, our emptiness, our soul. That's why Lennon's words really are a loud message of hope whether he knew it or not.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down. And I do appreciate you being 'round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won't you please, please help me? Help me. Help me.

Sounds like a great pray to me. One that we all need. One that I've prayed... again... today!