When You Need Help
Psalm 34:1-3, 6-7, 15-19
I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.
Praise moves from the outside in. We see the totality of God's deliverance and the covering of his people. From here we move into a life lived for God and covered with his glory. These verses establish a connection between the mouth which can be termed as lip service and the heart as brought out in Isaiah 29:13. The soul is the innermost being of a person; it is the seat of the personality which is formed from the breath of God. The act of praise is giving our breath to God. By this, we speak truths about him whether we see it or not. People who are in trouble or "afflicted" should praise God too. It suggests that praising God allows transformation in the heart, the personal life, as well as the situation. You might still have the problem or the trouble, but after praising God you will feel differently about such. We exalt the Lord not because he does not already occupy the highest place but because we need to know it. The original sin of the devil was that of trying to occupy the Lord's place in Isaiah 14:14. What the demonic spirit cannot do is praise the Lord.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
Praising God demands a response from the Lord himself. He responds in deliverance from that situation or that difficulty. We seek the Lord not because he is lost but so he will know we want his presence in our lives. We welcome his intervention and not just the intervention but who God is himself. So many want God to deliver them from a situation. I wonder if they really want his presence, because God will come in your life and say, 'fix this, fix that.' He is not just interested in your situation. He wants your life. He will say that is not right, live this way. Chose this path until your life resembles that of the blessed man for the Lord's hand is upon you. By the end of the psalm, by the end of the life, and even when you are gone God still defends you. The Lord's presence brings deliverance. You will never look the same again.
The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry;but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth.
See, Moses had a face to face with the Lord; the glory was so great that the people could not look at him in Exodus 34:35. The face advises people that you have a hope and a future. You believe in God, you say, but you look like you have lost your best friend permanently. Lives transformed by God always show it. Even if you say nothing, God created say so people as in Psalm 107:2. See there can be total life deliverances. It is expected, not a rare supernatural event. Occasionally, you see a paper say the old folk was resurrected in the morgue and we could not figure out who made the medical error. With the Lord that should be a common occurrence.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Not only that but even when we cannot see the Lord or the trouble, he still keeps you from it. Not only does he deliver you, surround you, and make the best place to run to but he also provides. From generation to generation, the Lord blesses the children for the faith of the fathers'; it requires the fear of the Lord to receive the blessing according to Proverbs 9:10. Otherwise you become as the house that is divided in Matthew 12:25.
The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all;
When the Lord touches your life, he transforms it. He does not have a list of do's and don'ts but rather the transformation of love. A life lived for Christ is one so consumed by him that you no longer do what you wish but what pleases him. An example of this is Enoch who walked with God, in Genesis 5:24, each day in the times of Noah during a world of great wickedness and testing. Yet, he was not for God took him. He did nothing but walk with God. I so want my life to resemble one who walked with him. This is not my list of rules, my house, or my dynasty I built but the life of Christ in me. I walked with Christ and was not found at the end of my days for I was already his. He just wanted me home with him. Not because he got tired of visiting, protecting me, and camping around me but because it was more expedient as in John 16:7.