Not always apparent

 8 Real help comes from God.
   Your blessing clothes your people!
(Psalm 3:8 The Message)

Have you ever found yourself in the place of needing help, but help just didn't seem to come?  It could be like when you have a deadline to meet and you seem to be the ONLY one who realizes that the clock is ticking down.  Perhaps it is a wayward teenager that seems to be making all the wrong choices who presents just one more obstacle in the life of a single parent.  Or maybe when you have no one around and their is a huge spider crawling across the bedroom floor and you don't have a book, a paper, or a shoe in sight!  At those moments, all you want to do is sit down and cry out for help - but there doesn't seem to be anybody within earshot!

David tells us that "real help" comes from God.  Earlier in this same chapter, he pens these words:

3-4 But you, God, shield me on all sides;
   You ground my feet, you lift my head high;
   With all my might I shout up to God,
   His answers thunder from the holy mountain. 
(Psalm 3:3-4 The Message)

God - the name of God also referred to as Jehovah - the unchangeable one.  He is the one who stands ready to intervene when David cries out.  He is the one who gives grounding to his feet and lifts his head high above the mess of the circumstances.  He is the one who becomes everything David needs at the very moment he has need.''

He is the one faithful in all his promises and it is he that is our "real" help.  You know, that word "real" has a unique way of describing Lord's intervention.  We often look for that which is the most apparent to us - but did you ever realize that the term "real" means that which is not always apparent?  Sometimes our "grounding" and our being "picked up" is not always apparent in the circumstance we find ourselves in.  We don't realize the reality of what God is and has been doing in our lives that brought us to the present point.  

We think of "real" as genuine, not counterfeit.  That is true - but the thing I think David wants us to see is that God is not always apparent in life's "moments" when we find ourselves crying out!  Just like clothing surrounds our physical frame and provides us with protection from exposure, the elements of the weather, etc., God surrounds his people with his protection.  He is what stands between us and the forces that come against us.

The next time you think you have no help - you are standing alone in life's moment - cry out to the one who protects without always being apparent in his protection.  You know, in this respect, God is kind of like a vaccine!  He gives us "immunity" to the things that otherwise might take us down!  He provides the protection from the "inside" out!  There is something of his character that is within us that will often be exactly what we need to draw from when we face that moment of challenge.

God may not be "apparent" in the moment you face - but stand assured - he IS there!

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