Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:8)
If you walk into my home anytime my children are awake, one phrase will meet your ears without fail: Help please, Dad. (Unless you hear the parallel plea, Help please, Mom.)
A book begs to be read. Help please, Dad. Juice cups loom empty — Help please, Dad. Tummies rumble after a long nap — Help please, Dad. Cold feet need socks — Help please, Dad. Jackets need to go on — Help please, Dad. Jackets need to come off — Help please, Dad. A seemingly endless torrent of needs cements this sentence on their little lips — Help please, Dad.
In a home with four children under five, this constant call to Dad should come as no surprise. They don’t yet know how to navigate the world. Their little fingers have all the dexterity of breakfast sausages, making zipping zippers and buttoning buttons about as difficult as playing a violin with your feet. They can’t provide their own food. They (mostly) can’t put on their own clothes. They can’t even go to the bathroom without help.
Though made in the image of God, these little dustlings are largely helpless, so it’s no wonder they continually ask for help. What should come as a surprise is that we, the “grown-up” children of God, do not avail ourselves of the same ceaseless cry.
Rustling of the Saints
In reality, we differ little from my children. Sure, we are a bit better at pretending to do things on our own. We have mastered zippers; we have unlimited access to the fridge; we can go to the bathroom on our own. As a result, we imagine ourselves largely self-sufficient. But of course, this is make-believe; mature saints — and my toddlers — don’t buy it for a moment.
The pages of Scripture rustle with the same childlike anthem of my home: Help please! We can’t go far without hearing someone cry out to God for help. God’s people solicit aid from the Almighty for almost anything and everything. Help to defeat foes and survive famine. Help to cross oceans and traverse deserts. Help to find water and secure food. Help to raze cities and to defend them. Help to conceive children and to raise them. Help before pagan kings. Help in lion’s dens. Help in fire and flood. Help for protection, for provision, for prudence.
If the children of God are a forest of trees planted by streams of water, then the cry for help is the ever-present psithurism of the saints. Psithurism (pronounced sith-ur-iz-um) refers to the low whispering or rustling sound of leaves in the wind. It captures the music of the trees under the breeze — and so perfectly describes the constant muttering of saints moved by the Spirit of God. They are childlike enough to know, like my kids, that they are constantly needy — and that their Father will help.
No Grumpy Father
I’ll admit, I can get pretty fed up with hearing my kids ask for help. On my better days, I might make it through two or three hundred repetitions before my patience begins to crack. But often, my heart starts to get fussy after only a dozen. Help please, Dad. Help please, Dad. Help please, Dad.
But that is never the case with our heavenly Father! I grow weary; he cannot. I am needy; he is not. I get grumpy; he does not. I (occasionally) ignore my kids; he will not.
Our Father loves to hear us pray, Help please, Dad. He designed the whole universe so that we would marvel at the one who meets our every need. After all, the Giver gets the glory. The Helper, the homage. The Provider, the praise.
That’s why Jesus so often directs us to pray for help. When his disciples ask how we should pray, what does Jesus say? He warns us not to heap up a slag pile of words as the pagans do, but instead to pray (in my very loose translation), Help please, Dad. Help us honor you. Help us build your kingdom here. Help us eat today. Help us forgive. Help us steer clear of evil.
And just in case the myth of self-sufficiency still makes us reticent to request help, Jesus stuns us with this promise: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23). And he doubles down: “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). And again,
Ask, and it will be given to you. . . . Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7–11)
Unlike me, the Father of lights never gets crabby or cross. He sheds good gifts like warmth from the sun. He loves to hear the cacophony of our cries. The more they mount up, the more he delights to answer. After all, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He loves to lavish on us all the provision and privileges of the servants of King Jesus — if we but ask.
Desiring God