The Power of "Lord, Help"

“I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces…The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help.” —Psalm 34:4-5, 15 (NLT)

I often forget to depend on the Lord’s help. And I need it for everything. Even to breathe. And his help—everything in life, really—is like breathing. It’s inhale, exhale. Give, and give back in return. Everything starts with the Lord, and everything returns to him. His help isn’t like a pit stop in racing, where you go when your car needs refueling or to be repaired. His help is the car itself, the fuel already in it, your knowledge to drive it, the people and parts that will service it when the time comes, the road on which you drive, the people in the stadium.

This is what I’ve found: there’s nothing I can do apart from his help. All the education and experience and good fortune in the world won’t make me less desperate for the help of the Lord. And this help he freely gives sustains my life without my even asking for it. But oh, the depths of understanding, the effectiveness of action, the ease of effort, that comes when I do ask for it—just a simple request, “Lord, help.” 

Francisco de Zurbarán, Agnus Dei, 1640

Isn’t he so often awaiting our invitation? In my experience, he has let me maintain the illusion of control for a time, until he’s had enough of watching me suffer under the weight of self-sufficiency. At that point, he allows an obstacle, something in my life that unsettles my plans, that is uncomfortable or even painful, to bring me to the glorious moment when I say, “Lord, help.”

And he always comes.

There has never been a time in my entire life when I’ve asked for his help and didn’t receive it. He always comes to me more quickly than my breath.

At times, I’m sad to say, I’ve forgotten it was him. The desperate situation—the obstacle I couldn’t move, the fear that held me paralyzed, the pain that wouldn’t subside—would finally lessen and eventually vanish, and I would have the audacity to think, Oh, look at that! I guess I didn’t need his help after all.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Every inch of progress, every relief and resolution in desperate situations or simply undesirable situations, every success against the odds…it was and is all him, and all because “I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me…and freed me from all my fears.” It’s because “his ears are open to their cries for help.”

He is with us. After all this, I’m only beginning to learn how revolutionary that statement is—for all people groups throughout history, from ancient civilizations until now. Countless religions were and are practiced on the fundamental belief that a powerful deity must be appeased and cannot be approached. Not only did our God absorb what merited appeasement into himself, he also became human so that he could approach us instead. And so he could show us how to be human his way.

Matter matters to him. He became a body, soul, and spirit. He resurrected in a body, and he ate with us. He walked with us along the road. He’s present in the learning of a trade and working for a living and taking care of sick family members. He is with us while we wrestle with what we don’t understand. He sits with us in the tension of it all—not always promising to make it better right away, but never leaving our sides until he walks us into victory.

He helps us.

He has promised to help us until the end of time.

Jesus himself, this human God who teaches us how to be human again, shows us that if he could do nothing apart from the help of the Father, neither can we (John 5:19). Maybe we think that asking for his help is an imposition, that we have to save the “Lord, help” for extra special occasions. I believe that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I believe he’s on the edge of his throne, so to speak, just waiting for us to ask. I think he’s patient with us, moving us toward the realization that it’s not just about asking for help when we think we need it, but asking for it, and living in it like it’s the very atmosphere around us, even when we think we don’t need it.

It’s not by chance that when Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure, he introduced them to his Holy Spirit, the “Helper” (John 14:16). Nor was it by chance that he went on to promise this Helper would “be with them forever.” Being helped was meant to be our constant way of life, not for special occasions when things are going worse than usual. 

But when we wake up, we are to be helped by the Spirit. 

And when we lie down, to be helped by the Spirit. 

And to be helped by the Spirit as we walk and talk and work and buy groceries and take care of loved ones and go to church and go on vacation and go to dinner parties and get married and go to school and go to funerals and have babies and everything in between. 

We are to be helped. And he is going to help. That’s just the way it is.

The closer we are to him, the more we are acquainted with our humanity, and the more we will inhale his help and exhale praise. The more we realize that’s the way we were meant to live all along, the more we will know his love and love him in return.