Help is the most basic of words, found in every language and in every human heart, from the cry of a baby to the lonesome cry of every age, a calling out to one another, a prayer to God Himself. It is a realization of our need. We are not in control. We cannot do this life, this day, this moment alone.
God wired us for relationship. It is part of who we are. Our needs connect us with each other and draw us to Him. God never intended for us to do this life alone. And in this broken world, we cannot. We all know that deep inside. In the silence of our hearts, we whisper, “Help me.”
In his new book, How Far To The Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South, Esau McCaulley unfolds his personal narrative as he navigated a childhood of extreme poverty, the absence of a drug addicted father, and the faithfulness of his mother struggling to raise four children on her own.
Esau asks, “Where was God when I was a child in need of His protection?”
Now as a father of four, possessor of multiple academic degrees, author, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and New York Times columnist, Esau wrote this book to acknowledge that he just didn’t “make it” on his own. Even in his pain and suffering, he was not alone. “My grasp of that significance begins with experiences of God as a child, on my knees in front of my twin bed, hands clasped and eyes shut tight in prayer, repeating the simplest of prayers: “Help.”
God saw him. God heard that little voice. God loved him. “In those prayers, God came to me not with logical explanations of the problem of evil but with His presence. When I prayed, a sensation of warmth that began in my chest moved throughout my body. The room seemed less empty. The lack of speedy deliverance frustrated and perplexed me, but I never doubted my experiences of God. It was how I survived.”
Esau learned to pray as a child. He knew he needed help. He knew he needed God. Praying carried him through. He learned to pray by praying.
Praying is not meant as a ritual, a bedtime singsong ending to the day, even as a proverbial 911 call, but the deepening of a relationship with God. A time of talking, a time of listening, a time of realizing we are loved.
Tim Keller once pointed out: “God is not like a chess player casually moving us pawns around on a board. Nor is it usually clear until years later, if ever in this life, what good God was accomplishing in the difficulties we suffered.”
But sometimes God gives us a glimpse.
And praying gets us there. Praying does not just put our concerns and troubles in God’s hands. God spreads out our prayers that others will be impacted as well, not like displaying the evidence of God, but His Presence. “I am with you.” Praying is an act of trusting God, even in this.
“Dark and appalling are the clouds of war and wickedness and we know not where to turn, but, Lord God, You reign” wrote Oswald Chambers in the throes and atrocities of World War 1. That assurance is the outcome of crying, “Help.” As with Esau, the empty room is no longer so empty, our words are heard, we are not alone. Praying helps us to realize that.
When we pray, when we turn to God, we see things differently, we make different choices, we go forth with a strength that is not our own, into the familiar and even into what we cannot yet know. God changes our hearts through prayer. Our cry for help makes us sensitive to His provision, His leading, His way in this situation.
A few weeks ago, I lost a simple necklace. I did not know where, but the possibilities included the sanctuary at church and the vast square footage of our local Costco. We were spending the afternoon with some of our grandkids. “Let’s pray that God will help us to show us where it is,” I suggested to the kids. I have seen too much not to pray, even about the little things.
I did not know if we prayed that we would find it. But I did know, we just needed to pray.
Later, on our way to take the grandkids home, I asked my husband to stop at the church parking lot, now shrouded by the shadows of huge trees in the darkness. “Perhaps it fell off when I got out of the car,” I said. He pulled up where we had parked that morning. I used the little flashlight on my phone to trace my steps from the car to the entrance of the church. I was almost ready to return to the car emptyhanded, but at least I had tried, when our seven-year-old grandson joined me. Together we looked carefully on the paver stone steps, across the patio, just ten feet left, crossing a long crack in the concrete now covered with colorful autumn leaves. And suddenly, George cried out, “Gramma, there it is.” Nestled in the leaves was the slightest glimmer of a thin gold strand.
Even at that moment, I realized this wasn’t about finding an old necklace in the leaves at all. But knowing God’s presence. God did not just hear our prayers, but guided our steps. George knew we had prayed about it. We asked for help. And God revealed Himself.
I think about Esau as a little boy. And how he knew even as he prayed, despite the chaos and uncertainty in his daily life, God was with him, even against the odds. That little voice asking for help sent out reverberations throughout his life, both then and now, like a shield over him and God’s presence within. And as he said in the book, God carried him through.
Prayer is always against the odds. God opens doors we cannot even imagine.
Pray through the circumstances. Pray past the ending. This story is not finished yet. We have all of eternity for God to unfold His grand narrative. We may not know the outcome, but God gives us the power to stand.
What happens if we pray?
What happens when we pray?
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121. 1-2
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