Learning to Call Upon God
A Day in the Life
There is something deeply revealing about the way Jesus lived in moments of need. As I reflect on Psalm 50:15, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me,” I begin to see that calling upon God is not a last resort—it is an act of worship. It is the recognition that I am not self-sustaining. It is the confession that God alone is my source. And when I look at the life of Jesus, I see this pattern repeated again and again. He did not operate independently, even though He had every right to. Instead, He continually turned toward the Father.
In John 5:19, Jesus says, “The Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing.” That statement challenges me. If Jesus, in His earthly ministry, chose dependence over independence, what does that say about my own tendency toward self-reliance? The Greek concept behind knowing God, γινώσκω (ginōskō), is not intellectual—it is relational and experiential. Jesus lived in that kind of knowing. His prayers were not ritualistic interruptions; they were lifelines of communion. Whether in the wilderness, on the mountain, or in the garden, He called upon the Father—not out of weakness alone, but out of alignment.
I have to admit, there are times when I treat difficulty as something to solve rather than something to surrender. When pressure builds, my instinct is to calculate, strategize, and push forward. Yet the Scripture reframes that instinct. It suggests that distress is not merely an obstacle—it is an invitation. Could it be that some of the very situations I try hardest to escape are the very places where God desires to reveal Himself? A.W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If that is true, then my response to trouble exposes what I truly believe about God. Do I see Him as near, willing, and able—or distant and unnecessary?
There is also a sobering warning embedded in this truth. When I fail to call upon God, I am not simply missing out on help—I am withholding glory. The text says, “I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Deliverance and glory are linked. God’s provision is not just for my benefit; it is for His revelation. When He steps into my need and provides, it becomes a testimony to those around me. It echoes the words of Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” but now that declaration is seen in a life that depends on Him. My need becomes a stage upon which God displays His faithfulness.
Oswald Chambers captured this tension well when he said, “It is not the greatness of the thing you are doing, but the greatness of the power of God which is at work in you.” That shifts the focus entirely. The issue is not whether I can handle my situation—it is whether I will allow God to handle it through me. Pride resists this. Pride whispers that I should be able to manage, that I should not need help. But pride, as the study reminds us, steals glory from God and assigns it to self. It creates the illusion of control while quietly eroding dependence.
And yet, when I look again at the life of Jesus, I see no such illusion. In the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the weight of the cross, He prays, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). That is not resignation—it is trust. That is what it looks like to call upon God in the day of trouble. It is not always a prayer for immediate escape, but it is always a prayer for divine intervention. Jesus entrusted Himself fully to the Father, and in doing so, He revealed the heart of God to the world.
This brings me back to the promise of Hebrews 8:11, “They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” Knowing God is not reserved for the strong, the disciplined, or the self-sufficient. It is available to those who call upon Him. In fact, it is often in our weakest moments that we come to know Him most clearly. The Hebrew understanding of knowing, seen in passages like Jeremiah 31:34, is relational intimacy rooted in covenant. God is not waiting for me to prove myself; He is inviting me to trust Him.
So today, I find myself asking a simple but searching question: When trouble comes, where do I turn first? If I am honest, the answer to that question reveals more about my faith than any confession I make. The invitation of Scripture is clear—call upon Him. Not after I have exhausted every other option, but at the very onset of need. Let Him be my first response, not my last resort.
For further reflection, consider this article:
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/dependence-upon-god
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