Have no fear

What are you wearing today? Have you dressed by the time you read this, or are you luxuriating in your jammies for just a little longer? Regardless of how you have 'clothed' yourself at the moment, there is nothing like what comes from being clothed with the blessing of God! Have you ever snuggled deep into something of comfort because your day was just a little harder than you'd like it to be? You may even find you needed some form of help, but it just seemed to never be coming, so you hunkered down, sheltered in place and are just there waiting. 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! Yet, you might just cry out anyway - if not outwardly, at least on the inside! Never lose sight of this hope - "real help" and very "real comfort" comes from God.

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. Real help comes from God. Your blessing clothes your people! (Psalm 3:3-4, 8)

God - the name of God also referred to as Jehovah - the unchangeable one. He is the one who stands ready to intervene whenever we cry out, hunker down, and seek his comfort. He is the one who gives grounding to our feet and lifts our heads high above the mess of the circumstances surrounding us on all sides. He is the one who becomes everything we need at the very moment have need. Need reveals itself in many way, but the answer to our need is always the same! 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 our Lord's faithful interventions in our lives. 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" or "born along" 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 are facing. We just know we need a little comforting and a lot of his presence!

We think of "real" as genuine, not counterfeit. That is true - but the thing I think we need to see is that God is not always apparent in those life "moments" when we find ourselves crying out! Just like clothing surrounds our physical frame and provides us with protection from exposure or the elements of the weather, God surrounds his people with his protection. He is what stands between us and the forces that come against us. Not just once, but each and every time! The next time you think you have no help - you are standing alone in one of those "life moments" when things are just not all that comfortable - cry out to the one who protects without always being apparent in his protection. He gives us a form of "immunity" to the things that otherwise might take us down! He provides the protection we so desperately require from the "inside" out - maybe not apparent to us immediately, but this protection begins to reveal itself more and more as we 'settle into' his presence! 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! Just sayin!

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