1995 - From Psalm 54 I molded the words and ideas into this upbeat number. I thought it was cool that the prologue read “For the choir director; on stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “Is not David hiding himself among us?” Maskil is defined as “Possibly contemplative, or Didactic, or Skillful Psalm” Websters defines Didactic as “intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment” I guess that about sums up my goal through music!
When I wrote this, I was excited to sing it in church, but by this time I wasn’t leading worship but playing lead guitar with the Foothills band. So although it was upbeat and very positive and celebratory, I couldn’t get the leaders to give it a try so it just got shelved with the rest of the unsung songs of that season of my life. This was a bit frustrating, but I had gotten used to the rejection. The hardest part was that the proverbial shelf was getting piled quite high and I was growing increasingly less inclined to write anything new only to experience the joy of rejection once again. So my songwriting waned quite rapidly as evidenced by the jumps in time between the remainder of songs to be chronicled. In fact, from this song in 1995, I didn’t complete another song until 2003.
The driving force behind the sound of this song were some new chord formations and licks I had picked up on the electric guitar. I can remember practicing it on my red Ibanez Roadstar II in my bedroom in the house we had on Euclid in El Cajon. We had just moved there and the expense of that place forced me to take as much overtime work as I could get. We got ourselves into a pretty destructive financial quagmire at this point in our family. The more I worked the more money we had. The more we had the more we spent. The more we spent the more we “needed”. We amassed more and more toys and became quite worldly in our lifestyle.
My wife started a home daycare to help with all the expenses and it turned into a full-time large-license beast that consumed all our free time and burned her out. Our own children suffered from this as well as our home became an institution, and their parents were frequently unavailable even at home! It is only by the grace of God that they all turned out to be such great people in spite of our failings as parents.
Well this is getting quite long and rambling so I’m gonna wrap it up here. It was eight years till my next song was written. They were years of ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and watching our children grow up before our very eyes. The drama of three teenage girls turned into the war zone of three battling young boys as they took center stage in our parental responsibilities.
Some great memories of this time include numerous trips to the desert and the river, playing baseball with the boys, doing 4H with the girls and raising dairy goats and chickens. Building a tree house with the boys over Christmas break was undoubtedly more fun for me than for them.
GOD IS MY HELPER
© 1995 Words & Music by Reginald M. Michaud (Ref: Psalms 54)
Save me Lord, by the power of your name. Guard me by your strength.
Deliver me Lord from the hand of the enemy.
For the wounds run deep down to my bones. And I’m feeling lost and weak.
So my heart cries out for my Lord to rescue me.
And I will shout: God is my helper, my savior my Lord and king!
And I will dance, till the power of heaven comes down to rescue me.
He’s come down to rescue me…He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me………The Savior’s come down
Come down to rescue me………He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me and the world!
Help me Lord, by the power of your touch. Hold me in your hands.
Wipe my tears away as I wait for you.
Wanna feel your strength down in my bones. Wanna hear that lion’s roar.
Then I’ll know it’s time for a heavenly victory!
And I will shout: God is my helper, my savior my Lord and king!
And I will dance, till the power of heaven comes down to rescue me.
He’s come down to rescue me…He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me………The Savior’s come down
Come down to rescue me………He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me and the world!
And I will shout: God is my helper, my savior my Lord and king!
And I will dance, till the power of heaven comes down to rescue me.
He’s come down to rescue me…He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me………The Savior’s come down
Come down to rescue me………He’s coming down
Come down to rescue me and the world!