THURSDAY 21st
Psalm 13
NIV (vv5-6) – ‘But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.’
ESV (vv5-6) – ‘But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.’
As I read this verse for today the words of various songs came to my mind, those of us that were brought up on the hymn books the Pentecostal Churches used will remember that the hymns were put into sections, for me it was the ‘Redemption Hymnal’, in Emmanuel we have the ‘Making Melody’, which are both very similar, both have a section called ‘Trust and Obedience’, in which we finds hymns such as ‘Trust and obey’, ‘Jesus, I will trust thee, trust thee with my soul’, ‘Simply trusting every day’, ‘I am trusting thee Lord Jesus’, they are hymns that we sang that affirmed our confident trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, both in what he has already done for us, but also in what he is continually doing for us as he leads us and guides us. Sadly, to many today these hymn books are considered old fashioned and out of date, which is a shame as so much can be learned from them to strengthen us in our Christian walk. The hymns I have mentioned being good examples, for we are living in dark days, we are living in times when we do not really know what lies around the corner as far as the nations are concerned, and we do not know what will be the final outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic, how many more lives will be lost, how long will it continue, will it strike in our households? It is no wonder that so many are fearful at this time.
In our Psalm for today David was living in some difficult days in his own experience, and yet he could say ‘But I have trusted in your steadfast (unfailing NIV) love’, he had a confident trust in the LORD God and we too as we have put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can have a confident trust in him, and we can declare it by saying out this same verse of Scripture, ‘I have trusted in your steadfast love’ it is a declaration that we have not only put our trust in the Lord, but that we also trust him, for his unfailing love and his unfailing goodness are toward those who fear him. And we can sing it, that is why I still believe that there is much benefit in the hymns that are in these old hymn books, for they are not hymns based upon a soppy sentimentalism but upon a deep and confident assurance in who Jesus is and what he is to us who love him.
I remember when I first went to pastor the Church in North Wales, someone from another local Church said to me ‘but you still use the Redemption Hymnal’ it was a derogatory statement that was saying that by using the old hymnal we were out of touch and out of date. My answer clearly would be, the hymnal is never out of touch and out of date, because the words of the hymns have been composed by men and women who were in touch with the true and living God, they were individuals who had encountered what it really was to be a child of God and they really knew what it was to live for him come what may, and their confident trust in God expressed in the hymns they composed can still enable me to be strengthened and assured in my walk with God in the 21st Century. Maybe for many today the words ‘Trust and obey’ are too challenging? Maybe the words ‘I am trusting thee Lord Jesus’ are not quite ringing true for many who would rather be putting their trust in men or women or things, rather than in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we be a people who can confidently say, despite our circumstances, despite whatever may be going on around us, ‘I am trusting thee Lord Jesus, trusting only thee’, may we join with the psalmist and say, ‘But I have trusted in your steadfast / unfailing love’ may we also say ‘I continue to trust in your steadfast / unfailing love’.