An Ever-Present Help
God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1 NIV
God is “an ever present help in trouble,” but we sometimes allow bitterness to keep Him at a distance and thus we miss His help.
A young Irish immigrant, Joseph Scriven (1820–1886), was deeply in love with a young woman, and their marriage plans had been made. Not long before their wedding day, however, she was drowned. For months Scriven was bitter, in utter despair. At last he turned to Christ, and through His grace he found peace and comfort. Out of this experience he wrote the familiar hymn which has brought consolation to millions of aching hearts: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!”
Sometimes our way lies in the sunlight. It was so for Joseph Scriven as he approached his wedding day. But like him, we may find that our path also leads through the dark shadows of loss, disappointments, and sorrow. At times like this it is within our power to turn our sufferings into occasions for a firmer grasp of God, and make them channels through which a surer and brighter hope may flow into our souls.
Business losses, pensions that don’t pay the bills, loss of work, inflation, the sickness that lays us low, the sorrows that rob our homes of their light, children who rebel—all turned into blessings for those who by them become less attached to the earth and more attached to God.
Trouble will not hurt us unless it does what many of us too often allow it to do—harden us, making us sour, bitter, and skeptical. The trouble we bear trustfully brings to us a fresh vision of God, and, as a result, we discover a new outlook on life.
If we make our sorrow and trouble an occasion for learning more of God’s love and of His power to aid and bless, then it will teach us to have a firmer confidence in His providence, and as a result of this, the brightness of His love will fill our lives.
Trust God with a childlike dependence and no trouble can destroy you. Even in that last dark hour of death, when your flesh and your heart fail, you will be able to depend in peace upon Him who “is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26 NIV).
Our Father and our God, thank You for always being present in my life. I feel Your arms around me by faith. I see Your angels protecting me through the eyes of trust. I sleep in peace because You watch over me every hour. With You in my life, I’m never alone. And with Jesus in my thoughts, I am never afraid. In Him. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).