The area of motherhood that always seems to stretch me the most is anything related to my kid’s health. From the moment my oldest was born and required extra testing and care, I felt helpless. It then persisted throughout both my son’s childhood with chronic asthma and infections. Perhaps I feel this way because I don’t have medical training so I am clueless when it comes to understanding their medical concerns. When there is a health scare, there is nothing I can do to fix the problem; I am dependent upon health experts to tell me what to do.
I felt that way recently when my oldest fell and split open his elbow while out on a caving trip with his friends. They were two hours away, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service. By the time I found out and got him to the urgent care, twelve hours had passed. He then got an infection which the doctor fought with an intense array of antibiotics. There was nothing I could do but follow the doctor’s orders.
Except.
Except for prayer. Except for trusting in the Lord. Except for seeking his help and asking him to deliver and provide and heal.
In helpless moments, Psalm 18 reminds me: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v.2). And as the psalmist wrote elsewhere, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” 46:1). God is a very present help in times of trouble. Sometimes I forget that. I forget that his help is here and now. I forget that in this moment, right now, he is my rock and fortress and deliverer. Not that he was, but that he is.
He is my place of safety. He rescues me from trouble. He is my salvation.
All in the present. Right here. Right now.
So often I consider the Lord’s salvation as past tense, as something he did at Calvary over 2,000 years ago. Or even future tense, in that he has saved me for eternity and one day in the future I will meet him in glory. But in the present, in the here and now, the Bible reminds me that he is with me. He is my salvation in moments when I don’t know what to do or where to turn.
The Puritan, Richard Sibbes, wrote: “A Christian must look at the trouble with one eye, and to God with the other. See God to be your salvation. Let the trouble be what it will, if God is your deliverer. It is no matter what the disease might be, if God is your physician…God is our God. He chose us, in due time he called us, and made a covenant with us to be our God. He loves us, and preserves us…”
Life is filled with trouble. But we have a great and mighty God. He is present with us, ready to take us in as our fortress. He is our salvation—in the past, in the future, and right here, right now.
Dear friend, turn to the Lord with all your troubles and find him to be your present help.
Photo by Dušan veverkolog on Unsplash
