Help, please

Have you ever heard the saying, “God helps those who help themselves?” Not sure where it started. It sounds about right but it is not biblical. My pastors had a teaching on this a few weeks ago and I thought, “I wonder how many people have heard that and are living under that lie?” Yes, it is a lie. God does not help those who help themselves. It goes against the message of the cross. The whole point of the cross is that we were a people who could not help ourselves. We needed someone bigger than us to come and save us from the grip of sin and the oppression of darkness. We needed a Saviour.

God helps those who cannot help themselves. In fact, the Christian walk is a series of events whereby God continually puts us in situations where we cannot help ourselves. Reality is, we need God. God does not taken offence to our neediness. He is not thinking, “Eww so needy!” He is quite the opposite. He created us to be dependent on Him.

Like babies, fresh out of the womb need their mother to provide for them the love, food, protection and covering that they need, we too are like that with God. He is the source of life itself. Apart from Him, we will die. Not immediately and not physically but our spirit man dies when it is separated from God. So how do we live and not die? By clinging to God, our Helper!

Kind David was a good example of this. If you read the following books of the Bible, 1 Kings, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Chronicles and most of the Psalms you will see that every time something happened, King David would cry out to God. If there is ever a needy person recorded in the Bible, it would be King David. Yet, the Bible does not call him “needy Dave”. It calls him, “a man after God’s heart.” Something about David reaching out to God relentless and desperately, moved God’s heart. Psalm 18:6 says, “in my distress I cried out to You, the delivering God, and from Your temple-throne You heard my troubled cry, and my sobs went right into Your heart.”

Could it be that our relationship with God is distant because we keep shutting God out instead of reaching out to Him? Could it be that we are trying to be strong and help ourselves like a stubborn 2 year old who wants to do everything themselves instead of asking for help? God does not want us to spend the next ten years frustrated trying to figure things out, He wants to help us. He wants to teach us His ways. He wants to love on us and protect us. The Bible paints a picture of our God who not only loves us but One who draws close and stoops down to help.

Nehemiah 6: 16 says, “When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized this work had been done with the help of our God.” Has God ever shown up for you in a way that you knew, that you knew, that it was God who did it because there was no way? There was no way you would have ever got that job on your own. There was no way you’d ever have been connected to that person who blessed you or no way you would have come out of that situation alive and sane. God is always helping us. Sometimes other people see it more than we do but we need to ask God to open our eyes so we may see all the ways He is helping us.

Psalm 33:20 says, “We wait [expectantly] for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.” Sometimes we panic when we are in trouble. We pray for 5 secs and don’t see anything change and take matters into our own hands. We have a Helper. If you can’t see a clear way, wait expectantly for the Lord. He is your help and your shield.

What does King David have to say about God being our helper? We all know the story of David and Goliath so why not hear what King David had to say about how wonderful a Helper our God is? Psalm 42:5 says, “Why are you in despair, 0 my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His Presence.”

Psalm 42: 11 says, “So I say to my soul, “Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be disturbed. For I know my God will break through for me.” Then I’ll have plenty of reasons to praise him all over again. Yes, he is my saving grace!”

Psalm 46: 1 says, “God, you’re such a safe and powerful place to find refuge! You’re a proven help in time of trouble— more than enough and always available whenever I need you.”

Psalm 54:4 says, “But the Lord God has become my divine helper. He leans into my heart and lays his hands upon me!”

Psalm 63:7 says, “For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings [where I am always protected] I sing for joy.”

God is a helper, this is just the Old Testament, we will look at the New Testament next week. Meditate on the above verses and find more for yourself about how God is our helper. Put them on your wall, on your mirror or as your wallpaper on your phone. Keep them in front of you so you know who to call when you are in trouble. You have a Helper.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.