Day 20: Helper of the Fatherless
Read: Psalm 10:12–18
…to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless.
— Psalm 10:14 (ESV)
Reflect
Psalm 10 started with God seeming to hide. By verse 14 the psalmist has come around to a different confession: "You do see." And he names God with one simple word: helper.
The word is 'ozer, "helper." The form of it does not point to a single moment in time. It is less like "you helped once" and more like a name or a title. It describes who God is for the fatherless, steadily, all the time. He is not an occasional helper. Helper is his role.
The same root appears in Psalm 46:1, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble," and in Genesis 2:18, where God makes the woman as "a helper fit for" the man. This is not a lesser word. God uses it of himself.
And he uses it for the fatherless. The child with no one to stand up for him. The one without protection, without provision, without a father's voice.
The verse speaks first of literal orphans, children left without a father's protection. But it also reaches those whose fathers were absent, or present but harmful, or simply gone. This verse speaks to you too.
The psalm says it straight to God: you are the helper of the fatherless.
Across Scripture
God "executes justice for the fatherless and the widow" (Deuteronomy 10:18) and is called "Father of the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5; see also 146:9). James says true religion includes caring for "orphans and widows in their affliction" (James 1:27). Jesus promised his disciples, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:18).
Sit With It
If your father failed you, bring that to the One who is called "Father of the fatherless." Where your father failed, he does not.
Pray
Be my helper where my father was not.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.