Where Does Your Help Comes From?

"I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?"

(Psalm 121:1)

The psalmist who wrote this was probably on a journey of pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and he probably uttered this prayer of supplication while feeling inspired looking at majestic mountains along the way.

For me, it was when in the middle of the night, scared, my eyes fixed on the impossible mountain of work, I uttered those immortal words. Never had a deadline literally felt like a line of death, of which my lonely poor soul was felt being dragged slowly towards it, like a lamb to be slaughtered. For the past month, my soul woke up every night in search of something to cling on to...anything tangible, but felt nothing except an ancient promise.



I recently relived my own 'mini Garden of Gethsamene' every night for at least two weeks, as I prayed for 'the cup' to be removed from me. Deep down I knew it was more possible for me to triumph over the impossible than for the mountain to be removed. Only, I cannot do it alone. Not by myself. Not by my men who I couldn't trust.

Maybe now I understood why the psalmists of old would think of God both while waking and sleeping, day and night. Could I somehow find a way to grab hold of this ancient Force? If the ancient Word is truly true and infallible, could it still be true that "He who keeps you will not slumber, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep"?

As my half-tortured mind pondered on that half-awake, I gave thanks that I knew something (Someone) that millions of people don't. I wondered how many people in the world keep lying awake at night with torments of the soul and mind, how do they cope? How do they keep their sanity? How do they survive through the night? What about those who don't even have a bed?

Anyway, I wrote before that we could think of God as a worker in our lives instead of we as God's workers. What a shift in paradigm! For once, I had to live this truth, not just say it! I thanked God that while I could merely utter prayerful words (though desperate) on my bed, I knew God was already busy working every night in preparing the day and the way for me. He was doing all the harder work for me. I believed it. I had to!

"Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus" I prayed then...

I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself for getting into that situation. But I did wonder why I had been attracting similar situations (and evil people) like an unbroken pattern. What had I done? Then I heard someone said that sometimes the best reason may not be in the past, it could be in the future. Yeah, a future reason! All these situations are serving me, conspiring in my favour for a future work that's yet unseen. Another paradigm shifted again!

That deadline did come and surprisingly, peacefully. But, like the skilfully crafted plots in any good scary movie, the twist and turns came in places and times I didn't expect, but not unprepared. And like those great movies I used to laugh over, there was always another scare after the final scare. But thankfully, like those feel-good endings, the characters in the movie came together for good...even the villains who turned good. Apparently. Hopefully!

My church's theme of the year is 'Triumph in the midst of Trials'. Couldn't be more apt to describe my start of the year. I conquered every hurdle at my workplace, even the last huge one, while breaking old records (by a long long way) and setting new records in the process, profiting figures that had not been seen before, and brought huge transformation and reformation in the end! Undeniable miracle! Unprecedented outcome! Yeah, the word is unprecedented, by any standard, by my workplace and colleagues, and especially by my own!

Now, every night, my grateful heart still awakes and utters "Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus"... 




(A Story-telling preview, to be written in a future blog post)

I realized as I struggled to be authentic (interestingly, someone said that word also means to author) in writing the story of my life...there's another Author waiting to pen down his words, those that only he can write. He would if he's given permission, and is called upon.

There is no wasted pages in the hands of the Master Author. He doesn't need any help in the story-telling process.

I can only turn my book over.

Now help me get out of the way...