“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. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
– Psalm 121:1–4
What a picture. I obviously don’t know what’s going on in your life right now, but at this moment, I just want to encourage you with these words from Psalm 121:1–4, lift up your eyes, and realize, remember, that your help for whatever you are walking through right now, your help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. And He will not let your foot be moved. Because the one who keeps you never goes to sleep. He does not slumber or sleep. He is constant at every moment. When you lay your head on your pillow at night, He will still be sustaining you, He will still be helping you. Or when you are unconscious, through the night. When you are laying there not knowing anything that’s going on around you, He will be helping you. He will be sustaining you.
His Mercies are New Every Morning
And when you wake up in the morning, His mercies will be new all over again. What an awesome Psalm, Psalm 121. And as we are praying specifically for people and needs in the middle of this pandemic, and people are sending those in at radical.net/prayerrequest, I encourage you to continue doing that, I want to read what Susan wrote. And we’ve prayed along these lines before, but I want to bring it back in light of what Psalm 121 is teaching us. Susan writes, “Please pray for children with special needs and their families for whom sheltering in place is particularly challenging. Some children are affected greatly by change routines and they’re missing therapies, special education, and respite, such as Jill’s House, a ministry started by McLean Bible Church. So pray for supernatural patience, energy, peace, resources, protection, hope, strength, for these children and their families.”
Psalm 121:1–4 Prays for Families with Special Needs
I was reading this and just immediately thought of families I know in our church family, who all day and all throughout the night are caring for children with special needs. And for some of these families, it’s been years, many, many years since they had a full night’s sleep. And I think about Psalm 121. So I just want us to pray for those families. And I want to encourage those families with Psalm 121.
God, I pray, we together pray, right now for families and children with special needs. God, we pray for an extra measure of grace in these days, for them. An extra measure of strength, of peace, of energy, of patience, of all the resources they need, especially when some of the resources they’re used to relying on are not there in the same way that they normally are.
Psalm 121:1–4 Prays for God’s Provision and Love
So God, we pray. We pray that you would provide help. You’re the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. As these families and children look to You, may they know they have help from You, from the one who does not sleep and does not slumber, all throughout the night, all throughout the day, God, may You be their constant help, their constant strength, their constant hope, their constant peace, their constant energy, their constant protection from all the ways the adversary would want to use these days to pull them away from You, from one another.
So God, we pray for your protection of those families, parents, siblings, and children with special needs. God may they know Your love, Your grace, Your provision, Your help in all the more ways during these days, we pray. God, we praise You. We praise You for the privilege, the opportunity to lift up our eyes no matter what we’re walking through and know that You, the maker of heaven and earth, are our help. All glory be to Your name, O God. Our help today and tonight, when we’re sleeping, You’re not sleeping. When we wake up in the morning, Your help available to us all over again. All glory be to Your name, the maker of heaven and earth, our help. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
