I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;

From where shall my help come?

My help comes from the LORD,

Who made heaven and earth?

He will not allow your foot to slip;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

—Psalm 121:1-3

Yesterday, I discovered my new favorite way to read. After church, lunch, and a quick trip to Walmart, my husband and I headed home. My sweetheart hadn’t slept well the night before, so he made a beeline for a Sunday afternoon nap. I, on the other hand, had way too much energy for a nap. After a few minutes of debating with myself about what to do, I decided to grab my latest read and head to the park.

This park has a walkway around the playground at the center. The playground itself was full of boisterous children and their parents, but the walkway was fairly empty. So I opened up and began walking and reading. 

Walking and reading are two of my favorite pastimes, so I was having a ball. The best part, though, was getting to watch a little boy and his father going on an adventure near the path. The walkway crossed over a stream that flows through the middle of the park, so each time I made a round, I passed right by them.

Both sides of the stream were covered with rocks—any little boy’s dream. Slowly, the boy was traversing the rocky ground on either side of the bank. At first, he was a tad hesitant. He crouched low and sometimes scooted from rock to rock on his rear so he wouldn’t fall. But after a while, he got a little bolder and stood more upright, hopping from rock to rock.

I’m convinced that little boy was on a grand adventure through the Himalayas, and the entire time, his father was walking just behind him. The rocks that seemed like boulders to him were small compared to his father. The gaps that required a huge jump for the boy didn’t break his father’s stride in the slightest. And not one time did the father’s eyes leave the boy. Every moment of that harrowing adventure, the father was there watching over his son.

That’s why the boy gained confidence after his first few rocks. He knew his father was there watching over him.

Seeing how the father’s attention gave the boy confidence and boldness on his adventure reminded me of this psalm. The writer of this psalm is a mystery, but there are two things I love about it. 

First, I love that God is so near in this psalm. He’s not just near in the sense that He’s watching, but from afar. This isn’t a description of a God who set the world in motion and just let it spin. He’s a Father walking so closely with His child that He’s there to catch him if he falls.

Second, I love the tone. I don’t know what was at the top of that mountain. I don’t know what challenges the author was facing. But there was no hesitation in his words. No fear. Not even a hint of uncertainty. He knew that he would have help and that help would be from God.

Watching the interaction between the father and the son makes me wonder how often we go about life like the boy did when he first started his adventure—crouching low and scooching through life so we don’t end up getting any scratches or scrapes. 

There have been many days when that was my approach of choice when approaching my call to write. I might take a step, but I generally did so hesitantly, reluctantly. Like the boy, I was scooching from rock to rock instead of confidently moving forward.

But what would life be like if we made a point of taking on the tone of confidence communicated by the author of Psalm 121? What would it be like if we faced our challenges and callings knowing that our Father walks the journey with us? And the boulders in our way are pebbles in His shadow. And the chasms we have to jump across never break His stride. 

Psalm 121 reminds us that our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He walks with us daily, offering the kind of confidence we need to fulfill our callings, no matter how rocky the path. Just imagine how far we’d go with that kind of confidence!