God Speaking

“So do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

(Isaiah 41: 10)

A helping hand is a common saying, especially it seems in times of disasters and accidents, and you hear it on the news when people rush to give a helping hand to pull someone out of a crashed car or when someone falls and cannot get up. It is a loving and practical gesture. So, when the Heavenly Father says it to us his children, that he will hold us up, we know the best help ever is coming. I just read recently a beautiful saying that we can aways keep in our minds. 

I am held by the same hands that calmed the storm and carried the cross.

The most beautiful painting of God’s hand is in Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel which depicts God reaching down to create life through Adam, that Mighty Hand still reaches out to us. 

David knew that the Heavenly Father was always at his side and would guide him and he knew if he listened to that voice he would not be shaken. 

“I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is always at my right hand I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 16: 8)

Again, in Psalm 139. David has an all encompassing, description of help available. 

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me up.” (Psalm 139: 9 – 10)

When we have experienced the loving hand of the Father holding us up, it enables us to offer a helping hand to those around us who need help. There may be someone we know who is depressed and lonely, a visit from a loving friend can be a wonderful way to help them out of that low feeling, or someone grieving who needs a sympathetic companion just to be there with them in their sorrow. 

Friendship is a very important component in life and Solomon speaks many times of this in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, showing how we can extend that helping hand if we strive to have friends and care about them like our Heavenly Father cares about us, not just accepting his help, but to willingly offering that same help to others. 

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 10)

The other thing we all must remember is that when we are offered that loving help from the Heavenly Father, we need to accept it. We may think we should solve our own problems but how foolish not to grasp that Mighty Hand and feel him lifting us up.