When you need help, where do you look? When you are in a bind, to whom do you go?
The writer of Psalm 121 tells us where he looks and to whom he goes when he’s got a problem. “I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
I live in northeast Indiana where it’s about as flat as it gets. We don’t have any hills around here, so I find it difficult to relate to the reference to hills. So if you happen to live in a place devoid of topographical variety, perhaps we need to paraphrase these verses like this – “I lift up my eyes to the trees” or “I lift up my eyes to the sky”.
You get the idea. The point is obvious – the psalmist looked up because he knew that God lives in heaven. And this God above is his source of comfort and strength down below.
More importantly, this believer tells us why he goes to God in time of need. “He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3-4).
This is an amazing statement: God never sleeps. He has never slept and he never will sleep. He has never even take a nap!
To the child who asks, “Where did God come from?”, we humbly answer, “God always existed. He is without beginning or end.” And to the child who asks, “How old is God?”, we simply say, “God has always existed. He has no birthday, so we don’t know how old he is. He is eternal.”
So, from eternity past, which is a mind-bending concept that mere mortals will never get our brains around, God has not only existed, but he has existed in a state of complete consciousness. Always awake, never tiring, never running out of steam. He is as strong as he has ever been without ever pausing for a moment to sleep.
How can this be? We love to applaud athletes who excel in their craft and make the rest of us look weak and incompetent. How much more amazed should we be in the presence of the Almighty God who does not sleep, while we struggle to remain awake for 18 hours.
There are a 1,001 reasons to worship the Maker of heaven and earth. Certainly this is one of them — he never sleeps. And because He never sleeps, never takes a day off, never even takes an afternoon off, we can go to him in our time of need, confident that he will hear us and provide the help we need.
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