‘Help, LORD’
Psalm 12:1

The thought behind these ‘one word prayers’ first came to me while I was part of another week of prayer. This was the Ministers’ Week of Prayer which our denomination holds annually at the start of a new year. Along with Bible college students and workers under our Mission Board, times of preaching and prayer provide us with much help going forward. It was as my predecessor in Grace Free Presbyterian Church (Rev Ron Johnstone) was praying that he mentioned this word ‘help’. He himself had been blessed by hearing it preached  and so prayed it out. Is it not amazing how the Lord can take up the individual words and encourage saints one by one!

Help in desperate circumstance when man’s help fails

Many times in the Psalms and throughout the Bible men and women have cried for help and directed their prayers to the One who alone is the source of all needful help. There is a very touching occasion in Mark 9:14ff where our Lord Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit. What brought drama and intensity to the occasion was the inability of the disciples to cast out this spirit. Help was needed and the the parent of this child was understandably in great distress. This son was being torn apart, he gnashed with his teeth and was withering away. No help in man could be found nor would be found. The word ‘help’ appears on two occasions. First in verse twenty-two, the father said, ‘if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us’. Then again a little later on he says, ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief’, Our Lord Jesus Christ was his only help and compassionately intervened.

Help at all times and in all seasons

Back to our Psalm and we discover that David’s need for help was for different reasons. Listen to him as he says, ‘Help, O LORD; for the godly man ceaseth…’. This was a very different need from the father of that son in Mark 9 but help was still needed. King David saw that the faithful were few and far between; there was a failing from among the children of men. Additionally there was a double-hearted community and the words of people’s lips carried with them the stench of hypocrisy. This grated with David, it grieved him. All who are children of God must have that same spiritual sensitivity. Do we look around us, seeing the times in which we live, and lament the lack? If so, our response must not be one of unbelieving despair but a going to God where we simply cry ‘help.’ It may be that you as a Christian are enduring a heavy burden and like both men you see no help in others. Your help comes from the Lord Who made Heaven and Earth!