“In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.”
Psalm 18:6

Our cries for help to God are never ignored. He hears, and he answers. In the hymn “O Worship the King” we sing of this great power and love that God gives to his children.

O worship the King all-glorious above,
O gratefully sing his power and his love:
Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.

We sing to our all-glorious King. From the beginning he has been our shield and defender. We lift our voices to praise him! The verse recalls his love as our praises reach him, and our hearts are lifted to his throne. And yet, as we continue to sing, everything seems to grow dark.

O tell of his might and sing of his grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

Perhaps our praises weren’t enough. Is God suddenly angry with us, making a dark path of wrath in the storm? What happened to God our Defender? Psalm 18 declares that grace and wrath can go hand in hand, because for believers, God’s wrath is not turned towards his children, but towards our enemies to defend us. He rides to our rescue on those deep thunderclouds. The Psalmist says it this way:

Here is his grace! Here is our God, our Defender, acting swiftly to rescue us. So we sing:

Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light.
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

But what of the times when it seems the Lord doesn’t come swiftly to help? Scripture says God’s ways are not our ways. There is no greater example of this than in the Messiah sent as a helpless baby.

Israel longed for a redeemer to save them from their enemy, Rome. They longed for a king to sit on the earthly throne of David. They cried out to God to be rescued and God sent his Lamb to take away their sins and save them from darkness. Many missed the amazing, wonderful help God sent in the form of his only Son. Many still miss receiving a rescue far more abundant than any of us could ask or think. (Eph. 3:20)

Earthly enemies can only kill the body. Unforgiven sin condemns our souls to eternal death. God heard their cry and gave the greatest help He could give. A help that reaches to all mankind. A help that reaches our furthest past, and forward to all our tomorrows. God does hear our cries, and he always answers. Frail children that we are, let us pray he opens our eyes to see.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!