All Prayers are Appreciated

At this point the. doctors, Pastor and Koyce are doing what they can. The rest is in the hands of God so we covet your prayers. We receive daily offers and written prayers and one of these prayers was written by Mary Smith of Salem, Oregon. Here is her prayer:

“I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
Picture of our house as a kid in E. Wenatchee

Mary Smith was going to call one day and pray with me but decided instead to write out her prayer and send it. Listen to it. “Dear Lord, hear my prayer. It is from my heart, and it's for someone very, very dear to me.

My friend, David, faces a tough week. But, that's nothing for you, God. You aren't surprised by our circumstances or taken aback by our life experiences, because you see the road ahead. You already know what you're going to do and how it will be accomplished.

But, since WE don't know what lies ahead, here's my specific prayer request: Heal him, Lord. Restore David's health. Give him courage in those 3 am alone times, and remind him that HE ISN'T ALONE, because you're right there with him through every moment.

We thank you for life. We thank you for our mothers and fathers who gave us life and for all we've learned and know about your Word and YOU, but we don't know enough. We want more years to grow in your ways and influence more people and to enjoy more time on planet earth. But only if it's your will, Father.

Thank you for the people you bring to our lives....David to mine. And Koyce to David's. Oh, I pray that Koyce will be a strong woman, filled with confidence that you're going to bring her through this, and we know that she's going to need a lot of strength. Bring friends to her side.

Bless Scott and Mike. They love their father so much! They need their Dad. So do the grandchildren. So, I'm asking you to carry this family through an uncertain time, knowing you are with them every minute.

Lord, hear my prayer. I thank you for all that you are going to do, and we claim your many promises, especially Psalm 121. We know our help comes from you. You are mighty, awesome, and we praise you, now and always.

In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Love, Mary (Curt, too)”

Mary made reference to Psalm 121 that begins by saying, “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there? (Psalm 121:1). In David Jeremiah’s book, A Bend in the Road, I used it relied heavily on it in preparing a message about the journey I was about to embark on. This is what I said to them: “The writer here has prepared himself for his journey through the mountains to Jerusalem. And as he gets unto the road, he takes a minute and gazes up to the horizon. There he begins to think of the miles ahead, all the twists and turns and even surprises. He also thinks of the dust and the heat, the darkness and all the thirsty miles. He admires, however, the graceful line where the mountains and the sky come together.

When I almost 9 years of age, my dad took a ride on the Great Northern Railway going west and went through the Rocky Mountains. He had never seen mountains as majestic and he said that the thrill of seeing such majestic mountains caused him to cry. No wonder my dad eventually built a house in the state of Washington where he could look out the windows and see the mountains. It was spectacular. (And I showed the people a view out of our living room window that we looked at every single day. Above is a picture of our place being built in the winter of the mid 1950s)

Now there are many places in the Bible that describe the mountains as a place of blessing, but—we all know that the mountains can also be a place of danger. Mountains are places where people lose their lives. The rocks and caves hide wild animals as well as bloodthirsty bandits. Pagan cultures built their temples in the mountains. The godly pilgrims found a sense of majesty in the high country, but they also found a sense of danger and fear of the unknown. The writer of the psalms must have thought about all of these things as he gazed upon the mountains and began his journey so he says, “I look up to the mountains, where will my help come from?”

Now if you were raised like I was with the King James Bible, you can probably quote for me the first verse of Psalm 121 and then complete the next sentence. For it says, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, (and what is next? It is,) from whence cometh (or ‘comes’ in the NKJ) my help. And probably many of us have thought that this verse was saying, “that the hills are the place from which help comes.” But unfortunately, the King James left out a dash here and a question so that the verse should have read,

“I look up to the mountains— (dash) does my help come from there?” The answer is of course “no. Not at all.” The hills are not the place from which our help comes, rather the hills are the place where help is needed. The hills or mountains represent the perils of the journey due to the crevices and ravines along with wild beasts and robbers. The mountains are a place of danger. The pilgrims of old looked to the mountain ranges that they had to cross on their route to Jerusalem and they were wondering where they would get some help. It is in this situation that the psalmist says,

“My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Psalm 121:2). It is the Lord who is the source of our strength. Our help comes from no one but God. What a lesson for life’s travelers on this earth. And don’t overlook how the Lord is described here. He is the one who made heaven and earth. The idea is—our help comes from a Creator who hung the stars in space and set the earth upon its course. What encouragement this is! I mean, think about it. If God can guide the planets, he can surely guide our steps through the ups and downs and the twists and turns and the bends we come across in life’s journey.

Think about this. When your journey brings you to a bend in the road such as hearing that you have cancer, or you just lost your job or a number of other things, you can be filled with a sense of helplessness. And you will cry out to God and say, “Lord, I need your help!” And in the moment of deep anxiety, we need to remember this—and it is, the One to whom you are praying is the One who created the heaven and earth. He is the Creator God. So, take a deep breath and look to the Lord who can certainly take care of you. Some of our people at church are a bit concerned about how I am going to handle the curve in the road I have just come upon. But know this—help is on the way. For my help is coming primarily from the Lord.” David Jeremiah has a great big that came out of his experience with cancer. I would highly recommend it for anyone who has come upon a bend in the road.

Now a word of praise. David came through the Stem Cell Transplant superbly Thanks for praying.