Thursday, 10 September 2026

Right Help!

Right Help!

Psalms 121:1-2 AMP
[1] I will lift up my eyes to the hills [of Jerusalem]— From where shall my help come? [2] My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

The writer of this psalm is not indicated, but the message in the psalm is clear. The title of the psalm reads as: 'a song of ascents or degrees' which is generally interpreted to reflect pilgrimage or spiritual progression. It presents a picture of someone fully aware of who he is, where he is headed, and how best to get there.  That is the first impression that jumps at you in the first line of the extract above. Jerusalem was surrounded by hills, and the writer must have been in or around theae hills. The hills offered physical protection, but I am sure tha writer knew that the hills alone could not do the job of safety and security well. 

The Judean hills provided a natural fortress, and for a nation quite used to wars, there was an advantage to being able to see the enemy advancing. Like the writer, we could also be tempted to trust in physical measures we have put in place to secure what we have or know, but we must also realise that the life we have now cannot be truly secured by that which is also created. How can that which is temporal and ephemeral provide eternal and error-proof safety and security? How can the created itself secure just another thing that is created? Only that which is eternal can guarantee results that are also eternal. What fuels your hope? 

It is easy to be impressed by the size, range and reach of these hills. The world knows how to sell that which it wants you to focus on. It will create the problem, and also sell you the solution at a higher cost. This is why there is a need to shift focus from that which the world is making noise about, to what God is saying to us today: size and reach alone do not answer the question about true help. Help generally means to give assistance, support, or make a task easier for someone, which could tempt one into thinking that this help is only intended to make things easier for me, as I could do it by myself. That is the world view of help. 

There is the kind of help that comes from God which is detailed in the latter part of the extract above. This is the One who has authority over all that has been made, and is in control of the affairs of men. It does not matter how high or deep the problem is; the One called the Ancient of Days has been in charge of all long before the problems arose. 
My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. His own help does not wait for me to earn or deserve it before He gives it; after all, what could I have done to earn His gifts of salvation and eternal life? He gives grace in fullness,; He shows mercy in abundance, and He saves from danger even when I am not aware that there is a problem. That is the kind of help that I have access to: timely, complete, unbreakable. Do you know this God? God's time of favour is here  

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