Our Help Comes From the Lord

These words of the lyrics to the song Praise You in This Storm came to my mind today:

I lift my eyes unto the hills

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord

The maker of heaven and earth 

What an important question this is for all of us—where does our help come from? Isiaah put it this way: “To whom will ye flee for help?” (Isaiah 10:3) There are many helps that we can obtain in life through the world, but our most important and powerful help is from the Lord. These lyrics were likely inspired by Psalm 121:1-2 which reads, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” Another psalm likewise says, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalms 124:8). This prayer from David gives a similar message: “Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man” (Psalm 60:11, 108:12). When we have challenges, we need the Lord’s help more than man’s help. Like David, we should seek Him through prayer when we have trouble. He who made the heavens and the earth will always be the one in the best position to help us, whether our struggles are large or small.

                I know in my life that the Lord has been my greatest source of strength. I looked through my journal today and found one experience out of many in which I found divine help when I needed it. I wrote, “This week at work the Lord helped me with a problem I was trying to solve for our clients in London. I was trying to figure out why they were getting certain results in the long-term run and they were looking for some immediate answers. I was trying all sorts of things trying to get to the bottom of it, and finally I prayed to the Lord. A little while later the answer came to me in my mind: ‘Look at the demand curtailment units’ pricing.’ It turned out to be exactly what I needed and I’m grateful for the Lord’s help in my job.” This was over 15 years ago now and I remember well that client who gave me a lot of stress. It was a relatively small thing, but I remember that I as I turned to the Lord for help He always came through. I have seen this over and over throughout my life, and I can say with Isaiah, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2). I love this injunction from the prophet: “Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Isaiah 26:4).

               The Savior gave us a powerful example of seeking God’s help when we are in trouble. Luke recorded this about His experience in the garden, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). President Holland made this comment about this verse, “How does one who was perfect pray more earnestly? We assume that all of His prayers were earnest, yet in fulfilling His atoning sacrifice and through the pain that attended its universal reach, He felt to pray ever more pleadingly, with the weight of His offering finally bringing blood from every pore.” If the Savior could pray more earnestly in His most difficult time, we too can pray more earnestly as we struggle with our individual challenges. The Savior promised us over and over: “Seek, and ye shall find,” and surely that is especially true when we seek for help from Him (Matthew 7:7).