Ask

My second year of teaching, I made the rule for myself that I would ask any question that occurred to me.  And that I would never let myself be too afraid or embarrassed to ask the blunt question.  To ask them to clarify the premise or explain the acronym (I would have been totally lost if I hadn't had this rule about acronyms).

This year, my first as a theatre teacher, I think I unintentionally made the rule for myself to ask for help.  There are key places where I didn't get it -- but crucially, they were the places I ASSUMED I would get help.  The people I've asked for have pretty much come through -- come through the best of their abilities.

My cast is trucking along, and I spent until midnight with a good friend hanging lights for five hours.

One of the quotes from C.S. Lewis that I still think about all the time despite my more complicated general feelings about him and his writing is the Pevensie answer to another character's question why Aslan didn't just give help and explain himself: "I think he likes to be asked."

Don't we all?  It means you're not assuming that help is offered, that it's a sacrifice on your part rather than a duty that's no big deal.  It means you are being asked to contribute, that your opinion and work is actively valued instead of taken for granted.  That you have value both intrinsically and to me and my life.

And that last bit is I think why God likes prayer.  Why he models asking for our daily bread -- note, not the special blessings but the daily gifts in our lives -- in the Our Father.  He doesn't need us to bestow or even acknowledge his Instrinct value, but it reminds us to value our faith and our relationship with God.  It reminds us to value God in our lives -- which can only make us better people.

Seek and ye shall find.  Knock and the door shall be opened.

In remembering that God is good and can help us, we acknowledge Him as important to our lives, and we live them better.