Verse of the Day - Psalm 121:1-2

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"I lift up my eyes to the hills — from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
Psalm 121:1-2, NRSV

Perhaps the hardest thing for people who are marginalized by society or stuck in systemic cycles of oppression or poverty is that they are almost always trapped. They have been abandoned by the people who have the means to help them escape those cycles.

The psalmist, here, lifts his eyes to the hills, toward the horizon, searching for help that he hopes is coming but that he knows isn't coming from the people around him. The psalmist declares that what help arrives is from God, the maker of heaven and Earth, the Lord of Israel. It was that very same Israel from which no help came, but the God of Israel arrived.

Sometimes the people who ought to help are not the ones who do it, but God is not those people. God is a helper and a hope and a shelter for the needy. God desires after the marginalized and oppressed.

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