Where's My Help Now?!

Have you ever seen a child hold it together after a painful incident JUST long enough for their loved one to enter the room? The child who stoically mustered all their strength to keep their quivering lip still falls into their mother or father’s embrace like an oozing jug of maple syrup. Bewildered teachers may say things like: “He really has been fine all day?!”

There is this unbelievable thing that happens when our nervous system suddenly knows we are in the presence of someone who loves us. Our bodies may not have even let on to us, let alone to anyone else, how deeply we needed some securing, until it knew for sure it could get the care it required.

The psalmist seems to be reminding us that there is such a One that we can count on. This One is able to move mountains and earth to express how deeply God’s love is for us! This is the One who awaits us with his help.

I wonder what it is you are most needing his help with this fall? What is changing for you as a new school year starts? As schedules tighten and summer memories fade, what is it you’d admit you need help with—if you had someone actually safe enough to come alongside you and help?

Help More Enduring Than the Mountains

There is a Loving One who beckons you to look up to the grandeur of mountains and know his helping hand is even more sound and enduring than that! Psalm 121:3-4 says,

He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps.

I remember being a little girl who struggled with nightmares. Our family had experienced some traumatic stops and starts to our family history. It was during a more painful season that we moved in with my grandparents, and so it was that I could hear my grandmother watching TV at night when I slept in the adjacent room.

As the plot lines thickened in her drama series, I was always most struck by how good it felt to know she was keeping watch over the house. Somehow, her presence in her favorite lazy boy chair told me I could let my guard down. I could let slumber overtake me—as long as someone promised to be on guard on my behalf. 

Sometimes we encounter unexpected obstacles on the job, in our relationships, or in chance encounters that take a turn for the worse. We don’t always know what is coming. We don’t always know what to even brace ourselves against. Financially, professionally, or personally, our hearts may want to tremble—if only we could find some arms safe enough to crumble in. 

A Safe Place When Facing the Unknown

Perhaps today you are prepping your heart to face unknowns beyond your capacity to foresee solutions. It’s moments like this that our nervous systems eagerly scan the horizon of our lives for provision we can count on. If we’re honest, being scooped up by someone who’d let us catch our breath for a while sounds just about right on hard nights.

I was watching a wildlife special recently, and the moderator said that the penguins of the Antarctic go away to get food for their hatched babies and return, their black-and-white bodies waddling back to a sea of babies all crying out at the same time.

The images were staggering. Half a million fuzzy, new penguin babes crying out for help. And in a way that is hard to fathom, the parent penguin moved their way through all the rest, recognizing the call of their own young, no matter the chaos around them. No distraction or competing sound stopped them from honing in on the one that called for them with all they had!

Psalm 121, verse 5 continues describing the Lord as such a One who knows your need today:

The Lord himself watches over you!
The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night. The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.

With this truth in mind today, I’m going to make a list of the cries of my heart. Perhaps you will join me in this exercise of trust. If you wrote down the very things your heart most needs the Lord’s help with today, what would you describe?

I’ve heard it said that prayer is sometimes like a long staircase with many steps. But if you prayed today, what would just the next few steps in front of you include? List them. I dare you to be specific. I dare you to trust with me that the God who created all heaven and earth can hear your heart’s cry.

What if our needs can be met, one by one, as God’s provisions reach us in our calling out for help? I am praying this fervently alongside you, Dear Reader. Let’s dare to trust him together just a bit more today than we did yesterday. Our feeble faith may be small. But what if his faithfulness is bigger still?