Lord i lift my eyes to the hills

Because of that confusion, later versions changed the punctuation. The ESV says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

 That makes it a little clearer, but it doesn’t answer the question. Why did David lift his eyes to the hills?

But one time when I was reading Psalm 121, I began to think about David’s life.

It appears that David wrote this psalm after he was king, which means it was after he had spent a lot of time in those hills, the ones to which he was lifting his eyes.

What had happened in those hills?

For years, maybe as many as ten or fifteen years, he had hidden in those very hills, from a maniacal king who was dead-set on killing him.

When David looked at those hills, he saw despair and grief and darkness and hopelessness.

But when he looked at those hills, he saw something more. He saw protection. He saw deliverance. He saw safety in the cleft of the Rock. In those hills, David knew the presence of God.

When David became king, he wanted to remember that even in the darkest places, God was still there, leading him, protecting him, fulfilling the promise He had given him when he was a youth, even when it seemed impossible.

Lift up your eyes to your own “hills.” What are your own hills? They are your time of greatest darkness and despair, when it seemed that God had forgotten you, but when afterwards you could look back to see that He was really holding you. He was there.

For Joseph of the book of Genesis (chapters 39-41), the “hills” he looked to might have been a memory of his years in the dungeon, waiting for the purposes of God to be fulfilled. And they were, far beyond his imagination.

For the apostle Peter, the “hills” he looked to might have been a memory of his faltering and failing when he followed Jesus as a disciple, knowing that Jesus loved him and protected him and eventually filled him with His Holy Spirit to do miracles and preach with power.

For Jesus, the “hills” He looked to were the cross of Calvary that He had to endure for the joy that He knew was set before Him on the other side.

For a friend of mine, the “hills” she may look to might be the days when she despaired that she would ever recover from the effects of horrific sexual abuse, only to see later that the Lord Jesus was walking with her through her healing journey to the other side.

For me, one set of “hills” I would look to would be a time of darkness when, spiritually speaking, I couldn’t see my hand before my face.  But then seeing the Lord bring me out to the other side and show Himself strong and manifest Himself to me.

What are your hills? Are you in them now, crying out for God to be there with you in the darkness and hiding and fear? Are you feeling like He has abandoned you?

Don’t lose heart. Hold on to hope. Trust Him to finish what He has started.

There will come a day when you’ll lift your eyes to those hills and say, “See those hills right there? Those, right there. They are the place of my greatest despair and grief and darkness and hopelessness.”

And then you’ll say, “But they are also the place of my greatest protection and deliverance. They are the place I was kept safe in the cleft of the Rock. They are the place I began to know the presence of God.”

Psalm 121

A Song of Ascents.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.