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My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:2 (NCV)
We all need help figuring out this thing called life from time to time. Help figuring out a career or career change; help building or rebuilding relationships; help fighting the battles of fatigue, worry or the ever-present battle of just growing old.
During those dark times when help seems distant to the enemy of our souls convinces us that we are in this thing alone, remember the facts. Your help comes from the Lord, the King, the Creator of the universe.
God’s help is timely. He is never late even though our frail minds think otherwise. “If only you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died” was the cry of a sister whose brother died needing the touch of the Savior. By human timelines Jesus was too late. But Lazarus would tell you he came just in time.
God’s help is powerful. Would the one that controls all of nature let one of his children slip through his hands? Would the one who hangs the stars in place ‘drop the ball’ when it comes to watching over one he loves more than the world itself? As one writer put it, “[God] will sooner destroy heaven and earth than permit his people to be destroyed.”
God’s help is constant. He never sleeps. He never slumbers. You are never out of his sight, never too far away for him not to snatch you from the arms of disaster. There’s no need to worry when you are in the presence of God and you are ALWAYS in the presence of God. As Max Lucado says in his book “Come Thirsty”, ‘Jesus has two words to describe worry, irrelevant and irreverent.’
God’s help protects us. Normally we think of needing God’s help when the struggles around us are too great to bear; when no man can help us. But perhaps God’s help is needed most during those times of plenty, when life is good. For it is during those times we tend to rely on ourselves rather than God. It’s during the good times of life when the enemy can attack most easily and bring us down. It is during those times when God’s protection is needed and available the most.
My help comes from the Lord, my Lord. The one who created the heavens and the earth. The one who saw me on the day of my conception and will never leave me until that day when I see him face to face. And that day will be glory for me!
PRAYER: O Lord, my Lord how majestic is your name. I praise you today for the help you give me on so many levels. I can go forth today knowing I’m never out of your watchful and caring eye. Thank you Lord. Amen.
If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” Psalm 11:3 (NASB)
Jesus told a parable one day about houses and the importance of building your house on a firm foundation. Jesus was a carpenter. He knew the importance of having a firm foundation to build the walls on. A shaky foundation would never stand the tests of time or weather the storms of life.
Although he was chosen by God to be king, David lived in constant threat of his life from an angry, insecure, violent King Saul. David endured his threats, dodged his spears and suffered the effects of Saul’s ridicule and lies while he waited for the promise to be fulfilled.
David was able to withstand Saul’s attacks because his trust in God to fulfill the promise; his trust in God to protect him when evil attacked; his trust in God when it seemed he’d been forgotten, was greater than his fear.
David’s foundation lay in his trust of an omniscient, all-powerful, forgiving God. When we face hardship in this world, the depth of our foundation is crucial in maintaining our walk of faith. A foundation set on the surface is suspect. A foundation that goes deep into the bedrock will be unshakable. The roof may crumble. The walls may fall. But the foundation will remain intact.
Enemies of the faith will tell you the foundation the Christian faith is built on is suspect. They’ll tell you that there are other buildings, other ways of faith that will give the shelter and protection of the Christian faith. But while their walls may seem secure, the weakness of their foundation will never stand the tests of time.
The promise David waited for was two-fold. One was that he would sit on the throne ofIsrael. It took many hard years for that to be fulfilled. The second part of the promise was that an eternal king from his lineage would sit on the throne ofIsrael. The promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who will one day come back to claim the throne that is rightfully his.
Our faith is built on a foundation that will never fail. It may seem our walls crumble around us. The enemy’s attacks may destroy what is seen. But the foundation of our faith, the Word of God, will never falter. It’s a foundation you can trust in.
PRAYER: Father, in our day it seems like the very tenants of our faith are under attack and being destroyed. Even those who claim to be called ‘Christian’ are making decisions that go against your Word in the name of Grace. I praise you today that the truth of your word, the foundation on which I stand, will stand the attacks and weather the storms of time. Amen.
The LORD is my fortress! Don’t say to me, “Escape like a bird to the mountains!” Psalm 11:1 (CEV)
Huddled against a flickering fire, in the darkness of a cold, mountain hillside, a young boy listens to the night sounds while millions of stars flicker above. Alone, but not lonely, his thoughts gravitate towards his God. A song comes to mind and as he meditates on its words a cracking branch in the darkness snaps him back to reality. Taking a torch and his slingshot he goes to investigate. Minutes later, a roar is heard as a lion falls dead just feet from its prey, a sleeping lamb.
Years later, that shepherd boy, now an anointed king waiting his turn in the palace becomes the ire of the current king. His life in danger once again, his friends urge him to flee to the mountains he loved for safety.
The mountains were a place of security and a symbol of strength. The mountains were a place where the oppressed and abused would go because in the mountains it was much easier to protect yourself from your enemies. For David, they held a special advantage. They were home. He knew virtually every cave, every cliff, every hiding spot were danger come. The mountains and his trusty slingshot offered him all the protection he would need.
It seemed logical, to David’s friends, that when Saul began to threaten David’s life he should flee to the safety of the mountains. But when God is involved, logical isn’t the best way. To flee to the mountains would imply two things to David.
Fleeing to the mountains would imply that the mountains were David’s best source of protection. In David’s eyes, it was God that was the source of his protection, not the mountains. The rock on which David trusted was the strength of his God.
Fleeing to the mountains also implied that there was no more safety for David in the palace. To this I imagine David thought back to the day he was beckoned from the hillside to be anointed King by Samuel. David knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the palace was where he was supposed to be. When you are where God wants you to be in life, you are in the safest place possible.
The enemy of doubt and its accomplice, fear, want us to believe that safety comes by our own strength and our own cunning. The follower of Jesus Christ knows differently. Safety comes when we are where God wants us to be. Will trouble come? Certainly. But in the face of that trouble we can have peace because we know we rest in God’s arms of strength and safety.
To the world a strong bank account offers financial stability. To the world, good health and good medicine offer the best hope of a long, satisfying life. To the world, protection comes from physical strength. All of these are good, to be sure, but we as followers of Jesus Christ know our ultimate protection comes from a loving, omnipotent Heavenly Father. When we trust in him we have NO FEAR!!
PRAYER: Father the future scares me. The financial picture is bleak. The political atmosphere is terrifying. It seems there are more and more things that cause me to worry. Empower me with your spirit to put my trust in you, not necessarily in the wisdom of those around me. In the strong name of Jesus I pray, Amen.
Why, LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Psalm 10:1
It’s during the wilderness time of our lives that we expect God to be present. After all, doesn’t scripture say ‘He is an ever present help in times of trouble?” (Psalm 46:1-2) Aren’t we told we can hide in him? (Psalm 91:1-2)
Too often it seems like he is the one hiding. If we are honest, the times of trouble we go through aren’t nearly as hard to take as the feeling that in those times of trouble we struggle to see God’s face. “I could endure this trouble if I could see you!” we tell ourselves.
Those struggles of our heart, the painful wandering in the wilderness of our souls are the true test of our trust in God and our belief in the hope we have through Christ. If God were to carry us through every trial and make our journey effortless; if he were to keep us from all pain and suffering and show us the easy way to traverse the rocky path of life; if he were to protect us from all pain, then from where would we learn to be strong. Troubling times are the skeleton, the muscles of life that give us strength to carry on.
Somewhere along the line we’ve gotten the mistaken idea that if God is a God of love, then pain will be absent from our lives, but this is never found in scripture. On earth, during this life we should not be surprised when trouble comes, we should be expecting it.
Sometimes we have to admit that the trials we endure are the consequences of past sin. We are forgiven to be sure, but the consequences of that sin can last a lifetime. Sometimes those consequences are natural results of our choices. Sometimes those consequences are the result of critical and judgmental people who refuse to allow us to forget our past. Either way, the consequences of our past can keep us from seeing the Father.
Times of trouble can be lessons of grace as well. Paul prayed three times for some unknown thorn to be removed from his life. The answer? My grace is sufficient. Were we to be trouble free, we might naturally assume that we are in control of our destiny, that we are able to make our way on our own strength. Grace reminds us that we need God. Times of trouble remind us that we need grace.
Times of trouble come at the hands of evil men as well. People who call themselves messengers of God can be the worst. They put the label of their religion on everything they do, but there is no grace. There is no understanding. There is no compassion. We are misjudged, misunderstood and mistreated. Sometimes for our past (which was forgiven) sometimes for our stand for God.
There may be other reasons you can think of for why this ‘time of trouble’ has come into your life. It may be to teach you some lesson on life, or to strengthen you for the future. Whatever the case, when you can’t see the Father you can know two things. One, he is not far away. Two, he has good reason to allow you this ‘time of trouble’. Use it to grow more closely to him or it will be used by the enemy to pull you away.
PRAYER: Father, I don’t understand you. I confess that openly. It’s especially hard to understand you during those times when I feel like I need you the most and can’t find
“that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:5-6 NLT
A few years ago I changed my cell phone provider and as a result got a new phone number. For a short time after that (and still on occasion) I’d get phone calls from people looking for someone else. I’d tell them that this was my number and I wasn’t the person they were looking for. That person, who ever it was, was no longer at this ‘address’.
That’s what grace is like. As we try to grow closer to Christ, old acquaintances will try to contact us.
Old friend worry will dial our number when the boss tells us that the company will be downsizing and your hours will be cut.
Lust will pop up on the phone screen of your life when things at home get a little to stressful and you begin to wonder if the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.
You’ll hear the familiar voice of anger as you find the porn magazine under your son’s bed.
Doubt will ask for you to come to the phone when the prayers you prayed so fervently aren’t answered the way you’d hoped.
Fear will text you when the doctor calls and, rather than give you the results over the phone, asks you to come into the office.
Shame and guilt? Oh, they still have your number too. They’ll call at any hour of the day or night, waking you up to remind you of your past or question how you can talk about God with this ‘monkey’ hidden on your back.
Grace tells us that we can respond to each of these old friends by saying, “Sorry. I don’t live there anymore.” Before Christ we lived side by side with all of these old friends. Now that Jesus is in our lives we are changed, we’re new people, we live at I M Forgiven and we no longer need to take calls from the old life.
When the old friends call don’t give them a moment of your time. The shame and guilt you once carried can be placed on the back of a Savior who died to free you from that baggage. The anger, lust, worry and fear can be put out on the curb for garbage pick-up. You have no more use for it.
There’s nothing you can do to free yourself of these enemies of your soul. But that’s okay, Jesus already did that for you 2000 years ago on the cross. Today he sits at the right hand of creator God to be an advocate for us in our struggle. Because of Jesus you no longer live at that old address!
PRAYER: Lord Jesus the old life isn’t willing to let me go very easily. I still struggle on a daily basis with at least one of the old ‘friends’ from my past. Empower me by your Spirit to live free of their harassment. Because of you I’m a new person at a new address and they have no more hold on me. Thank you! Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 