Never Aloneনমুনা

Day 4: Here

“I’m not alone, here in the chaos, your peace surrounds me.”

The word 'ezer' occurs approximately 21 times in the Old Testament. It’s translated as ‘help’. Here are just a few examples:

• Psalm 33:20 – He is our help and our shield. 
• Psalm 70:5 – You are my help and my deliverer. 
• Psalm 115:9 – He is their help and their shield. 
• Psalm 121:1 - I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?

It’s important that we understand the type of ‘help’ God is. We must not make the error of thinking that God is a maid-servant who comes at our beck and call like Viola Davis in the 2011 movie ‘The Help’. Rather, God is better seen as an unshakeable fortress during times of chaos. It’s no coincidence that after God is called our help, he is often called our shield. However, what is it about God that makes him so trustworthy? Let’s do a quick astronomy lesson.

Our planet is located in the galaxy known as the Milky Way. It takes about 225 million years for the sun to travel around the Milky Way, a period of time known as a cosmic year. A German supercomputer estimates that there are 500 billion galaxies in the Universe, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars. In other words, there could be a galaxy out there for every star in the Milky Way. Therefore, if we wanted to visit each galaxy in the universe, at the speed of light no less, it would take 500 billion cosmic years or 112,500,000,000,000,000,000 years. 

…and all of this God made without lifting a finger. 

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. When we call on God, we call on the one who is able to do ‘exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. 

And he’s not out there, he’s here. He’s in the air you breathe and the steps you take. He is before you, behind you, watching over you and dwelling within you. 

He is here.