A Very Present Help

A Very Present Help

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1, ESV

A PLOW VIOLENTLY TILLS THE GROUND, the planter sows seeds into it, and over time, often with quite a bit of care in the process, a harvest comes. The fruits of long growing seasons are always pleasant, but the means for arriving at them rarely are. Some aspects go more smoothly than others, but the first—the plowing of the ground—is the roughest. It involves a deep rupture of the hardened surface in order to put something valuable beneath it.

That’s how crises work in our lives. They violently open our hearts to the seeds God wants to plant in them. He doesn’t necessarily author those crises, but he does know what to do with them. They become the fertile ground of some of our most authentic prayers, and if we keep coming to him in faith, we are drawn closer to him in the process. Eventually, we see the fruit of that tumultuous season, and it’s wonderful to taste. But we know it didn’t come easy.

God promises to be “a very present help” in all of our troubles, and our cries to him in the midst of a crisis are as raw and real as they are instinctual. But think about what we would know of him if we didn’t have those moments of need. We would never know his mercy, deliverance, healing, and comfort, all of which imply problems to address. We could not know him as Defender, Rescuer, and Strength. Our darkest trials become the backdrop for his most brilliant work, and they reveal his character to us and to anyone who happens to be watching. They are the stage that presents his nature.

That’s why our best prayers for help are not laments, complaints, or desperate pleas—though he gladly hears them all—but faith-filled requests for him to show himself strong on our behalf and expectant questions about how he wants to do it. He is drawn to hearts that trust in him not only to meet their own needs but also to display his glory in the process. He is very present when our lives are plowed by the brutal instruments of life, and he eagerly sows seeds for a magnificent harvest into them.

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.