Assurance of God’s Protection: Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

We live in a day and age where knowledge is at our fingertips. If my kid gets sick, I can type in Google search, “joint pain”, “excess hair growth”, and “change in odor”, and find out that my child is going through puberty.

This last week my dad accidently put a hole in my shower wall when he slipped. (Yes, he is ok.) What I thought was going to be a simple replacement of six tiles and some dry wall turned into the replacement of my entire tub surround. Never having done a job like this before, where did I turn? I turned to Google. I watched videos, read comments, and in a day and a half I was able to replace and update my bathtub better than it was before.

I know it isn’t just me, either. Almost every week when teaching Jr. and Sr. High students I will say something that a student doesn’t believe and they will ask, “Can I Google that?” Google has become for many of us the end-all-be-all for knowledge. If for some reason I do a search that doesn’t yield any results, I must have done something wrong, not Google. Google would never forsake me. Google has to know the answers…right?

Whether we like to admit it or not, we put a lot of trust in the Internet. The sad part is, if I were to ask today, “where does your help come from?”, many people would say "Google" or "the Internet". We have turned away from looking to God for our help. When we get sick, are depressed, lonely, lose a job, or lose a loved one, there are many places we turn to for help. But the Psalmist reminds us that our “[true] help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” This can be comforting and scary at the same time.

The same God that made the heavens and the earth loves us so much that he will not slumber to make sure we are safe. The same God who created the Grand Canyon and the beautiful Arizona sunsets is the same God that protects us from all evil. However, despite how much God cares for us, often God is the last one we turn to with our problems and our concerns. When sickness hits our children, it is only after Google and the doctors don’t have answers that we turn to God. When facing a promotion or a change in jobs, how many of us spend time in prayer before accepting a new job, especially if it pays more money? When we are dealing with problems with our children or parents, how many of us spend time praying with them and for them? If we are honest, we probably don’t feel like God really cares about our little problems, or that God won’t do anything about a headache or a fight with a parent or child. But that isn’t what scripture says.

The Psalmist tells us that God cares about our problems and Jesus himself reassures us by saying, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I am not saying that God will solve every problem we have the way we want it, but God will provide. Think about this… the same God who created the universe is the same God who loved us so much that He would leave heaven to die on a cross so that we might live. There is nothing too big or too small that someone who loves you that much wouldn’t want to know about. There isn’t enough good in our life that would ever exhaust the joy that God has or would want for us. There is never enough bad that we could do that would ever stop God from loving us. EVER!!

So instead of turning to whatever it is we turn to for help - whether it is information, guidance, reassurance, hope, love - what if we looked to the hills and remember that our help, in all things, first comes from the Lord.

 P.S. Google did help me with information about fixing my bathroom, but without turning first to the Lord and putting my trust in him I never would have had the strength or courage to take on the project.