Psalm 121:1-2
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
The soul that relies not on God stands in the air with nothing under it, and the more it seeks support elsewhere, the heavier it sinks. But the man who lifts his eyes to the Creator finds that the same hand which made heaven and earth is not weary of sustaining what it has made. There is no help in hills or men or princes, but there is help -- full, free, and certain -- in the Lord. The question of the psalmist is not skepticism but redirection. He looks at everything the world calls strength, then turns his face toward the only strength that does not fail.
-- Anselm of Canterbury, *Proslogion*
The fundamental problem of the Christian life is that we keep looking horizontally for what can only come vertically. We scan the hills -- relationships, career, strategy, self-discipline -- for rescue from situations only God has the power to resolve. Psalm 121 is not a denial of means; it is a relocation of trust. My help does not come from the hill of my credentials, the hill of my savings account, or the hill of my best intentions. It comes from Yahweh, Maker of heaven and earth. To confess this is not passivity -- it is the precondition of all effective action. The man who knows where his help comes from can act boldly because he is not depending on himself.
-- Paul David Tripp, *New Morning Mercies*
Irenaeus of Lyons, *Against Heresies*, Book IV, circa 180 AD. Written to refute Gnosticism and affirm that the same God who created the world is the God who redeems it -- a necessary word when you are tempted to look anywhere else for help.
"Man is not in all respects formed by hands, nor is he placed within Paradise, that he might find that God who formed him is not a thing to be avoided, but that he might recognize his own Creator, and adore Him as Lord, and give thanks to Him as the Giver of all good things. For it was for this purpose that the Word was made flesh, that He might destroy death, and bring life to light, and that every man who believes in Him might be saved. The help of God, therefore, is always present to those who seek it, not because they deserve it, but because the Father's hand never wearies of lifting up the fallen."
The discipline of looking to God alone is the most difficult in the Christian life, not because God is hard to find, but because every other source of help is closer, louder, and lies better.
-- Thomas à Kempis, *The Imitation of Christ*
Where are you actually looking for rescue today -- and would you even know it if you saw it?
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
-- Seneca, 1st century AD
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