November 9, 2023

Dear Central Church,

You may be familiar with this Psalm:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

The context of this Psalm is that on the way up to Jerusalem, the worshiper would travel a road through the Judean wilderness with high mountain bluffs on both sides. They were beautiful and inspiring, but that’s not why it has the worshiper’s attention.

The bluffs provided a place for bandits to hide out and ambush people who were traveling alone. This journey often left people in very vulnerable and precarious situations. Seeing the challenges and the terrain filled with potential danger, the worshiper laments, “Where does my help come from?”

Have you ever felt that? As we progress through life, we will constantly be faced with situations we have never encountered. The longer we live the more likely we are to face unexplored mountain bluffs filled with potential danger. Who knows what lay ahead? There could be bandits of disease in those hills. A thief disguised as a friend may be waiting to betray us. A robber wanting to steal our joy and replace it with the fear of the unknown may descend on us at any time.

With so much potential danger all around us, the psalmist’s lament becomes our lament, “Where does my help come from?”

The psalmist answers his own question: “My help comes from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and earth!” It’s good to know that the world is not spinning haphazardly out of control. We serve the Lord, the maker of Heaven and earth. He holds all things in His hands! There is nothing outside his sovereign care and infinite love. This includes the big and small things that we go through in life.

This Sunday we’ll worship in our newly remodeled sanctuary for the first time. Our schedule will remain the same with English services at 9 and 10:30am. As we prepare for this moment, my prayer is that everything we do in this new space would point us to the “Lord, the maker of Heaven and earth.”

Until He’s Finished,

Pastor Mark