Psalm 121:1-8
Help Is Standing By

A Song of Ascents.

I will lift up my eyes to the hills.
      Where does my help come from?
My help comes from Yahweh,
      who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to be moved.
      He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
      will neither slumber nor sleep.
Yahweh is your keeper.
      Yahweh is your shade on your right hand.
The sun will not harm you by day,
      nor the moon by night.
Yahweh will keep you from all evil.
      He will keep your soul.
Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in,
      from this time forth, and forevermore.

World English Bible

In classic western movies of years past, the "good guys" often were pinned down under the rifle fire of the "bad guys." Just when the situation seemed hopeless, in would ride the cavalry to save the day! Somehow, help would come just when the heroes of the film needed it, and they would all live happily ever after.

It would be such a relief to live a "classic western movie" life. When situations would get difficult, we could flip a few pages further in our script and read where help would be on the way. Good, honorable heroes that we are, we know the cavalry would come, just when and how we need them, to restore the proper order we want for our little frontier town.

Sigh. We all figured out long ago that we don't have the script to read. There is no cavalry to restore the order we think is appropriate in our lives. Sometimes the bad guys win. Sometimes we must cope with loss, frustration, pain, and suffering. We even call it "maturity" when we develop an armor of cynicism to help deflect the hurts we encounter in life.

Most of us Christians also figure out that God doesn't work the same way the cavalry worked. Though we might want a resolution and a happy ending, God might have something else in mind for us. Though we think the situation is desperate, God may have a different assessment. We find we can't even figure out the difference between "win" and "lose" in God's view of the world! If we want to be the heroes in our "classic western movie" life, fully in control and riding into the sunset in the closing scene, we must recast the cavalry as someone other than God.

But where else can we turn? Only God is powerful enough and loving enough to save us. Here's the tough part: only God is wise enough to know what is best for us, and only God is qualified to direct the "movie" that is our life. Being the hero just isn't an option for us at all.

Consider the argument the psalmist makes. Who else knows every time your foot slips as you walk on rocky paths like those in ancient Judah? Who else watches you so attentively, never stopping to sleep or for even so much as a coffee break? Who else is as close as your shadow, ready to respond? Who else is always looking out for your good, even when you aren't? Only our Lord, Yahweh God, Creator of heaven and earth!

The psalmist tells us to look up into the hills for help, a Hebrew metaphor for where God resides, supported by God's presence on Mt. Sinai in Exodus, the mountain of the transfiguration in the gospels, and God's Holy Mountain in Revelation. The appropriate place for God was the highest point in the landscape. This is similar to our metaphor today of looking to the sky and the heavens as a metaphor for looking to God.

As highly as the Hebrews revered the mountain on which Jerusalem was built, they freely applied this mountain-top metaphor to any convenient lofty location. There is great wisdom in that flexibility. When I was growing up in Atlanta, in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, I could always look to the top of a hill, for there were hills everywhere. That's the point the psalmist made—we only have to look around when we need God's help, and God is eager to respond in the way God knows is best for us, now and forever.