Where does my help come from?
The simple truth we need for a new year
It was earlier than I hoped when the dog whimpered and whined to go outside this morning, but the gift of that wake-up call was a quiet house. I let her downstairs and followed her sockless in my pajamas into the cool of the December morning air.
Inside again, I lit the gas fireplace and settled into the familiar corner of the family room couch, opening my new Psalter to the psalms for the morning office. (Yes, this Psalter was one of my favorite gifts from Christmas, and it’s gorgeous!)
The first psalm I read is Psalm 120, and it ends like this: I labor for peace, but when I speak to them about it, they make themselves ready for battle. Reading those words about peace and war, I can’t help but think of the appointment at the ICE detention center planned for the morning. Two of our church’s ESL teachers will visit a student who has been detained for the past two months. They will have only thirty minutes to meet with him, and it won’t seem like enough to discuss important logistical matters and convey peace.
I send a quick text to one of the men participating in that visit, who responds and admits that he hasn’t been sleeping well and is feeling snowed under with other life responsibilities. “Where does my help come from?” I text back, quoting from the second psalm in the morning office, Psalm 121. “My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” I thumb those words into my phone and pray with small faith in a great God, the one whose power is beyond measure, whose wisdom is beyond searching out. I ask God to fill his people with his Spirit, multiplying what is possible in the span of 30 minutes.
I had plans to write a pithy post about the new year, but instead, this morning, I am simply thinking about the nature of Christian faithfulness, that there are never perfectly opportune moments to love and serve others as Jesus loved and served us. There is just ordinary life, when the dishwasher leaks and the boss demands and the kids scream. You have someone to love, to visit in prison, and this is on the very same day that your head is pounding because you haven’t slept well. Oh, you have every willingness to be a saint, but you’re waiting for the day when the dog doesn’t get you out of bed early, and there aren’t six extra people in your house needing beds and dinner.
Hear me when I say this: if you wait for perfect weather in the Christian life, you’ll never set out.
On the heels of a new year, I want to encourage you to take up a practice of reading Scripture this year that puts you—daily—into an encounter with the holy God, the maker of heaven and earth. Only then will your idealism suffer its necessary death. Only then can your attempts at faithfulness be sustained.
You will see, in the pages of Scripture, that your strength is small and insufficient. You will be forced to remember that every great work has been and always will be God’s. You will remember the nature of the bargain of faith, that the only resolution that will count for a new year is entrusting yourself to the one who keeps and preserves and protects and provides. You will learn to look to him, as “the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress,” Psalm 123:1. Your blustery heroism will be chastened, and this will be for your good.
“Those who put their trust in the Lord shall be like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but stands fast forever.” It’s the last psalm I read in the morning office, and it offers a grounding image for a new year, all its planning and purposing and resolving. “The hills stand about Jerusalem even as the LORD stands round about his people, from this time forth forevermore.” In 15 more minutes, the doors will clang open at the ICE detention center, and the clock will start on the 30-minute visit to our immigrant friend. It will not seem like enough, but the visit will be put into the hands of a God who can multiply a little boy’s lunch to feed a teeming crowd.
Tomorrow, there will be another act of faithfulness—and the day after that, another. No act “solving” the problem or “fixing” the crisis entirely. But love, paid out in quarters, over the course of a lifetime. And always remembering, as the Psalter reminds after every psalm, that glory is given to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
That’s truth with which to begin a new year.
Here are some ideas for your Scripture habit this new year:
Begin the new year by reading A Habit Called Faith: 40 Days in the Bible to Find and Follow Jesus. The book travels through the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of John, and each day’s devotional suggests a companion Bible reading.
Find a Bible reading plan here.
Buy a hard copy of the One-Year Bible (in the New Living Translation!) and dig in!
Start a new habit with a friend.
Aim for daily Scripture reading, at a pace that you can sustain!
Decide what you won’t read, watch, or listen to in order to make room for your new habit!
Thank you for sharing, Jen. Reading this, my heart is full. I will come back to digest further also.
“No act “solving” the problem or “fixing” the crisis entirely. But love, paid out in quarters, over the course of a lifetime”—what a great reminder of faithfulness!