Where to Find Strength in These Discouraging Times

I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from where comes my help. My help comes from the Lord.  Psalm 121:1-2

Mountains stir intense hope and awaken vigor, 

• but ultimately leave the climber exhausted and spent.  

Great men and great saints stir in me great aspirations and a great hopefulness, 

• but leave me ultimately exhausted with a feeling of hopelessness;
• the inference I draw is that these people were built like that, 
• and all that is left for me to do is to admire.  

Longfellow says: "Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime (extraordinary)," 

• but I question whether this is profoundly true.  
• The lives of great men leave me with a sense of my own littleness
• which paralyzes me in an effort to be anything else.  

Going back to the setting of the Psalm, one realizes that the exquisite beauty of the mountain scenery awakens lofty aspirations; 

• the limitless spaces above the highest mountain-peak, 
• the snow-clad summit, 
• and the scarred side ending in foliage and beauty as it sweeps to the valley below, 
• stand as a symbol for all that is high and lofty and aspiring.  

When I was young 

• this was the type of scenery most reveled in, 
• the blood runs quicker, 
• the air is purer and more vigorous, 
• and things seem possible to the outlook that were not possible when I lived in the valleys.

But as I have gotten older, 

• and realize the limitation not only of physical life but in the inner life, 
• the remembrance of the mountains and of mountain-top experiences leaves me a little wistful with an element of sadness,

An element perhaps best expressed by the phrase, 

• What might have been had I always been true to the truth, 
• had I never sinned, 
• had I never made mistakes!  

Even such simple considerations as these bring me to the heart of the Psalmist's song in this Pilgrim Song Book - 

• "Shall I lift up my eyes to the hills?"  
• "Is that from where my help is to come?"  

And the Psalmist answers, 

• "No, my help comes from the Lord Who made the hills." 

And there I have the essence of the spiritual truth.  

• Not to the great things God has done, 
• not to the noble saints and noble lives He has made, 
• but to God Himself does the Psalmist point. 

The study of biography is always inspiring, 

• but it has this one drawback, 
• that it is apt to leave the life more given to sentiment 
• and thinking and perhaps less to endeavor than is usually supposed.

But when I realize what the Psalmist is pointing out and what the New Testament so strongly insists on, "the Lord is our help," 

• I am able to understand such a mountain character as the Apostle Paul saying, 
• "Follow my ways which be in Christ."  

I have not been told to follow in all the footsteps of the mountain-like characters, 

• but in the footsteps of their faith, 
• because their faith is in a Person.

Adapted Excerpt From The Place of Help by Oswald Chambers