But the LORD Helped Me...

But the LORD helped me...

It took me quite a bit of time this morning to get to my bible reading.  I spent most of that time sitting in my chair, looking at the room around me and just feeling so very grateful for the life with which the Lord has blessed me.  I am, I confess, a morning person, but I have sat here or in comparable spots over the 20 years we have lived in this house and felt similarly.  The feeling doesn’t come from my circadian rhythms or my circumstances or even my coffee...it comes from the knowledge that the Lord is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation.  He is my strength in the midst of my trial and my song when my enemies have been defeated and the battle is past. Prior to coming to Christ, my life was a mess. If I had to use a Bible verse to describe it,  one from today’s reading in James comes to mind. 

For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved me, even when I was dead in trespasses, made me alive together with His Son.  My God “is become” my salvation.  From beginning to end I owe all to Him. He is in the big picture and also in every detail.  Both His sustaining and delivering grace are all over my life.  Since then, I have been assailed by griefs and losses, by doubts and fears, and by slander and betrayals, but I can, in retrospect of my past tribulations, say along with the Psalmist, “But the Lord helped me.”   My flesh and my heart fail, but my God is faithful...He is the strength of my heart forever. 

I called on the LORD in distress;

The LORD answered me and set me in a broad place.

The LORD is on my side;

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

The LORD is for me among those who help me;

Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me.

It is better to trust in the LORD

Than to put confidence in man.

It is better to trust in the LORD

Than to put confidence in princes.—Ps 118:5-9