Where Can I Find Help?

When you look around you, you see people everywhere in need of help. The commercial world overwhelms us with advertisements for the latest helps for all our needs. So, we search for the latest medications to cure our aches and pains. We hope we can find a pill that will help calm us so we can sleep. Often, we can find something to help us at the pharmacy. Other times we try to find a counselor, a doctor, a psychiatrist who understands our problem and will help us. These trained specialists can often ease our stress and our pain. However, much of our pain and stress cannot be cured with pills and doctors because some problems are related to our spiritual condition.

I like the way Psalm 121 opens. The writer asks a question that we all might ask. I look up to the mountains - does my help come from there (v1)? It's obvious that the mountains are not the answer because he quickly answers his own question. My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth (v2). No matter what we face in life, the Holy Spirit directs us to the same answer. Ultimately - sooner or later we will focus our attention on the Lord who is our help. In Psalm 46:1 we read that God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in time of trouble. We very often try every other option before we come to the Lord for help.

Fortunately, he is always waiting for us. In 121:3-8 we read what the psalmist discovered . . . what the Lord gives to His people. When you read this list you are suddenly aware that the Lord is all that you really need. 

He will not let you stumble and fall (v3). I know that we stumble and sometimes fall. It happens when our eyes are not looking toward the Lord, but at ourselves and our circumstances. 

The one who watches over you will not sleep (v3). You can't be any more secure than that. The creator of the universe is watching you while you sleep. The Lord himself watches over you (v5). He is our defense. Satan attacks us to kill, steal and destroy, but the Lord keeps His eye on us. We are safe. God's Word tells us that Jesus is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us (Romans 8:34). The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade (v5). 

The Lord keeps you from all evil and preserves your life (v7). Once again this can only happen when we commit our lives to follow the Lord. When Jesus is Lord of our lives, we are looking to Him to keep us. The Lord is quick to warn us when we begin to wander away. The Holy Spirit in us is constantly at work to keep us from evil and to preserve us. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go - both now and forever (v8). This tells me that I have a permanent arrangement with the Lord. He promises to keep watch over me in all of my comings and goings from now until I get to heaven. Jesus says that my sheep recognize my voice; I know them and they will follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never parish. No one will snatch them away from me (John 10:27-28). I may sometimes tend to wander away, but His commitment to me is forever. In Luke 15 Jesus illustrates this truth with the story of the lost sheep. He values us so much that He searches for us to bring us back home.

Are you looking for help? Where are you looking? This psalm directs you to the only place that can give you the kind of help you need. Turn your eyes to Jesus. He is your HELP!

~ Submitted by Tom N.