God our help in times of trouble

Are you able to pray when you are in trouble? Like waist-deep in the middle of the bog, 3am in a capsizing boat, sweaty palms in a fiery furnace?

I have found that at such times my best is one word or two-word prayers.
“Lord!”
“Please Jesus”

“God!”

“Lord help.”
“Help me God.”

Last Thursday at midnight I found myself in a hospital casualty with a baby who had vomited so much his puke had turned bloody.

Panicky, stressed, icy water in my stomach, the best prayer I could utter from the recesses of my heart was, “God, save my baby.” “My baby, God.”

No well articulated ACTS prayer (you remember that acronym for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication?), no lengthy ‘quote the word’ pray God’s word back to him prayer, no manipulation to get my way. Just a single desperate plea for help.

I remembered how God promises to deliver in the thick of trouble, how he is a refuge, strong tower, and rock in the day of trouble.

And call on Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honor and glorify Me.

Psalm 50:15

After my nervous system had calmed down and the baby was stable, I found solace in the midst of psalms, reading them aloud, personalising them as my prayers to God.

For the second in as many weeks, I found in David’s psalms the words to pour my anguish, worry, helplessness and overwhelm (is that even a noun) before a God who says he’s our rock, who asks us to run to him when we are facing overwhelming odds.

A week earlier God had used the psalms to quiet my soul when I found myself panicking on hearing my mum had been rushed to hospital soon after being discharged. I had raced through psalm 1-34 in one sitting, feeling my worry get words and God’s peace calm my heart. It was a divine exchange of worry for peace.

God asks us to run to him, call to him, wait on him. He promises to deliver, to send help. To whom do you run to when the oceans rise?

Psalm 18
“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.
The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears…. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

Amy Grant sang that the honest cries of breaking hearts are sometimes better than a hallelujah:

“God loves a lullaby
In a mother’s tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

God loves the drunkard’s cry
The soldier’s plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

Yes, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.