“I will lift up my eyes to the hills- From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” - Psalm 121:1 (NIV).
Except for those living in desert plains, it is common to see hills rising over any landscape. Hills can be a beautiful sight especially where there are covered with a rich a vegetation. In many cities, like Kampala, though hills have been invaded with settlements and are no longer lighted with the old vegetation, except for concrete structure.
If a hill is ahead of you, one can hardly see beyond. A hill by its nature obstructs a view. There are places where tunnels have been constructed to pass through hills, but mostly people decide to just go around a hill to get ahead. In brief, hills can be an obstacle in our journeys.
As believers we can also come up and face hills. A hill can feature in our very lives when we are faced with a challenge that we can’t see beyond. The challenge seems to be so huge that the hill in our mind actually becomes a mountain. Perhaps we might even be too terrified that instead of figuring a way around the hill, we drop down, exhausted with fear and worry.
When King David was faced with a hill, instead of only focusing on the hill, he looked beyond to something higher and more hopeful. The Almighty God who made the heaven and earth, and controls all situations. Instead of focusing on the hill of problems, he asked, “From whence my help comes?”
Once there was a situation when Moses sent out scouts to spy a new land. Of the 12 spies everyone saw hills; except two warriors who looked beyond hills, and believed there was a God greater than the giants they had seen (Numbers 13). Joshua and Caleb believed that that God would deliver them in spite of all they had seen.
Today, if you are seeing a hill ahead, may your faith rise and look beyond the hill, like Joshua and Caleb. Like David, believe, that our help will come from the Lord, a very present help in trouble.
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, where I am faced with a hill I look beyond it, because you are our present help, and will carry me through and beyond the hill, this I pray in Jesus’s name!
Related upcoming events
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19/04/2024 - 20/04/2024 All day“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” ( Isaiah 43:19).
Just before fire was unleashed down on Sodom and Gommorah, Lot was told to pack up with his wife and two daughters and leave their homestead. Now, once out of danger, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” ( Gen 19:26). Perhaps here we might pause and ask why she was bothered to look back.
Of course it could have been that old “curiosity killed a cat” mistake! Yet, it could also have been Lot’s wife was not sure where she was going and longed for her old life back. This is a common error. There was nothing stirring to look back. Just before Lot’s neighbors had attacked his house eager to rape his visitors. “They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” ( vv 5). Was there anything worth looking back to!
The case of Lot’s wife could be anyone else’s experience. The Lord has plucked you out of some mess. You have been delivered to a new life. Yet, somehow you decide to look back, as though there was anything good and worth longing for. Sometimes it is a bitter past you have been delivered from. Other than rejoice in your new blessings you keep being drawn back!
A wise caution goes, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” ( Proverbs 26:11). If the Lord has just led you out of a certain mess why look back like it was much better! Instead look ahead, for “he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” ( vv 17- 18).
Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, I thank you for delivering me from the darkness of the past and I look forward to a bright new future in you, this I pray in Jesus’ name!
