Where Does My Help Come From?
Where Does My Help Come From?
Facebook, CNN, Fox News, Instagram, your friend group, a well-meaning auntie, and the New York Times. Twitter, too, but I always forget about Twitter since I’m not on it. Either way, the headlines have increasingly centered in the last ten days around one word: Corona.
We’ve all heard something about COVID-19 by this point, and the emotional results are mixed. I’ve heard it all just by standing in the pick-up line at my kids’ elementary school. From hysterical to hysterically critical to everything in between, we are all responding in some way to this novel virus that has, at least temporarily, upended life for us in otherwise cozy America (cozy, for all intents and purposes).
I can’t imagine, with the anxiety that I am feeling, how much more I would feel if my trust and faith and very soul were tied up in the shifting sands of this life. Between pop-culture that folds in on itself every few years (or months and days I suppose) to life-changing viruses, to fallen governments, anyone tying their eternity to the material world must be utterly devastated.
When I feel myself getting pulled in the direction of the world, I look no further than Psalms. Providentially, I’d started my own study of Psalms a couple of weeks ago, reading a few each morning as the sun rose up behind me while I sipped my decaf coffee. I hadn’t made it to Psalm 121 yet, but I flew there today to read these words (from the NIV, format copied from BibleGateway):
Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of creation; the God who put on human flesh to come down and hold our hands and dry our tears, and heal our bodies; the God who spilled His blood as the ultimate atonement for the sins of all humanity—is where my help comes from.
No matter the outcome of any circumstance, I am His. Free from trials? Never, even promised by Jesus. But forsaken? Never.
My help doesn’t come from a meme, but from the Maker of heaven and earth.
My restful sleep isn’t delivered by CNN, but by the Lord who watches over Israel.
The harshness of this world will not burn me to my core because the God “with the holes in his hands and feet” (to quote Tarryn Fisher in Mud Vein) has paid the price for me.
I am free. I am free from the condemnation of sin and death, and free from the fear that this world and its evil relentlessly releases upon me.
My help, my rest, my salvation all come from God. That’s where I turn my eyes in these times. To Him and His Word.
Amen.
PS, Casting Crowns has a song centered around this Psalm called “Praise You In This Storm.” It’s stunning and powerful and has helped me through some TOUGH stuff. But, tread lightly, those of you new here, as the idea of PRAISE through trial might be a leap you’re too unsure of if you’ve not spent enough time in Psalms or the Word of God at all. Just my $0.02.