Where Does Our Help Come From?

White water on the river

The guys were excited. It was their first adventure in the Yukon and it was going to be great – a raft trip down a fast flowing river in the wilderness. What could be better? They had everything they needed to build the raft and with six of them to do the work it was completed in no time. They had purchased enough supplies to last them over a month so there would be no shortage of food. They had all the gear they needed to survive anything the wilderness could throw at them. When they launched the craft, their spirits were high. This would be a trip they would remember forever.

They could not know, as they polled that hand made raft into the river, that it would be a trip that would end in disaster, all because they had not taken the time to properly design a steering mechanism.

The raft was big. The small rudder they had added to the back, almost as an after-thought, was too small to make any significant change in where the raft went in the swift water. They realized it immediately, but it was too late. They were swirling down the river like a piece of straw in the fast current and there was no going back. After plunging through some white water they emerged on a direct course toward a large log jam on the end of a small island. They could not control the raft enough to steer it away. The raft collided with the logs and buckled, turned upside down and threw the six young men into the churning water. One of them never came up. The others, some badly hurt from the battering against rocks in the river, some without shoes, and all without any gear against the wilderness, spent a long hard week making their way to a place where they could get help.

It was indeed a trip they would remember forever.

Our lives can be like that. We need a strong rudder, a guidance system to steer us away from those things that could batter us and even destroy us. That rudder is the Word of God and Jesus Christ Himself. Without His Spirit living in us our world is easily tossed upside down. We are tossed into a river of turmoil and some of us will drown.

Without the Spirit of God directing our writing, all our work will be futile. Without the Spirit of God breathing into us and into our words, all those words are meaningless and will lead, not to a glorious journey of hope and salvation, but into a dangerous and endless wilderness.

The words of Psalms 121 and 119 are good words to ponder:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Ps. 121:1, 2).

“The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” (Ps. 121:8).

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps 119:105).

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Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed in The Word Awards. Marcia also has two devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded here.

Her most recent release is the first book in a fantasy series, The Ambassadors

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