Stressed by the coronavirus? This psalm, with its hills of life, can soothe

As I watched the news giving us the daily toll of the dead and dying from the coronavirus, my thoughts went to those who have survived, and are now back home with their families.

At times like these, it is so easy to see the glass as half empty. I would rather see it as half full. Empty is such a negative word. While the word full seems to offer hope — and hope is what we need today.

For the past three weeks, my church has not met for fellowship. Still, we members are in touch with each other by telephone and text messages, keeping each other encouraged and uplifted by sending prayers and suggesting special scriptures.

And at 6 p.m. each Wednesday, the Rev. Dr. Walter T. Richardson leads a Bible study on Facebook. Richardson is pastor emeritus of Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church in Perrine, and now an associate pastor at our church, The Church of God Tabernacle (True Holiness), where his father Bishop Walter H. Richardson is the pastor. And at noon on Sundays, he gives us words of inspiration. These gestures help to keep us grounded.

This past Wednesday, Richardson opened the Bible study by playing and singing that wonderful hymn, “Blessed Assurance.” Then he said, “I’ve come to offer encouragement and to determine how we ought to respond in times like these.”

On this day, Richardson focused the Bible study on Psalm 121, where the psalmist begins:

I will lift up my eyes to the hills — from whence comes my help?

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

Later, I asked him why he chose that particular scripture.

“I chose this scripture because we are all dealing with a hill of some kind,’’ he said. “This psalm suggests that in the hills there might be a problem. Those who were on their way to worship at another place had to go through the hills. There were problems and danger in the hills.

“The psalmist asked the question, ‘Where does my help come from?’ Verse 2 answers the question: My help comes from the Lord.”

And then he put it into context of the coronavirus.

“This is an uphill battle,’’ he said. “While we deal with hills in our everyday life — financial hills, relationship hills, spiritual hills and vocational hills, where many people no longer have employment, COVID-19 is a hill that we have never seen or experienced before.

“We are all affected by this hill. And like the psalmist, when we see the hills before us, we ask, ‘... where does my help come from?’ The answer is, Our help comes from the Lord. He is the only one who can help us through this situation.”

Richardson said these are weary times and he would ask people to limit the time they watch the sad news on television. He said he understands that we need to stay informed, but we shouldn’t let the sad news be a steady diet.

Instead, he said, focus on those who have survived this plague and are back with their families. Use the stay-at-home time to get closer to family and friends via telephone and social media.

“The Lord handles our weariness. He does not slip and he does not sleep. He handles our weakness, too, because in times like these, we tend to get a bit weak… our faith is tested.

“But the Lord promises us in Psalm 121, the sun won’t smite us by day, nor the moon by night. He will help us in our weariness and weakness and waywardness. The Lord promises us in this psalm that He will be our help.

“This is a wonderful psalm to memorize and meditate on. God is our help.”

This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM.