Who’s Helping Whom?

Who’s Helping Whom?

Let your compassion quickly meet our needs,for we are on the brink of despair.Help us, O God of our salvation!

Psalm 79:8-9

When I was a kid, my family loved to watch The Andy Griffith Show. One of the first episodes in that series was touchingly funny.

Following the death of his wife, Sheriff Andy Taylor decided to invite his spinster aunt Bee to come and live with him and Opie, thinking that she would add the missing feminine touch. Surprisingly, Opie was not too pleased to have Aunt Bee come in and “replace” his mother.

Andy tried to help the situation by inviting Aunt Bee to go fishing and frog catching with them so that Opie could become better acquainted with her and, perhaps, become more attached to her. Instead, she failed miserably at fishing and frogging and later at football.

Finally, late one night after Opie was in bed, Aunt Bee talked Andy into taking her to the bus station because things were not working out as they had hoped.

Opie heard her crying beneath his bedroom window and guessed that she was leaving. So he ran down the stairs and out to the truck, exclaiming to Andy, “We can’t let her go, Pa. She needs us. She can’t even catch frogs, take fish off the hook, or throw a football. We’ve got to take care of her, or she’ll never make it.”

I wonder if Jesus said something similar to God when he looked down at us in our sin and misery. “Father, we can’t just leave them to their own devices. I’ve got to go down there and rescue them, or they’ll never make it.”

It’s true—we need to be rescued. And thank God he came.

Father, please let me remember that I am constantly in need of your help and I need your salvation. Without you I am nothing—pitiful, weak, and lonely. Help me, Lord. Amen.