Psalm 71

"For You have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth." Psalm 71:5

"But for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more."  Psalm 71:14

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with a new and major crisis in your life today?  Do you feel overwhelmed with just the accumulation of small daily problems and responsibilities you face today?  The Lord wants us to come to Him in prayer with all our needs.  The Lord is our only true resource for all our needs.

In Psalm 71 David, the psalmist, prayed for help in his old age.  His enemies were threatening him, and his strength was declining.  David prayed in Psalm 71:3, "Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress."  In spite of David's appeal for help from God in this Psalm, David was also expressing his trust and confidence in the Lord.  God had been David's refuge and help in the past, and David knew God would be his refuge in the present crisis.  In Psalm 71:5-6 David continued to express his confidence and trust in prayer.  David said, "For You have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.  From birth I have relied on You; You brought me forth from my mother's womb.  I will ever praise You."

The longer we serve the Lord the more clearly we see the Lord's continual faithfulness to us in past problems.  Then we also begin to grow in our trust in Him to sustain us in the midst of our present problems and needs!  We need to contemplate the Lord's faithfulness in the past; so that we can proceed in faith, trust, and peace in facing today's challenges and problems.  Our constant prayer must be that no matter what circumstances the Lord allows in our lives we will continue to say to Him, "I will ever praise You."  May our lives be filled with praise for the Lord every moment both in pleasant times and in difficult times.  This is possible, if we are truly trusting that the Lord is leading and guiding our lives in faithfulness.

In Psalm 71:9 David went on to pray to the Lord.  David prayed, "Do not cast me away when I am old; do nor forsake me when my strength is gone."  David was facing a new major crisis in his life.  In this new crisis in his life David needed a sense of the Lord's presence even as he was growing older.  David then went on to say in prayer in Psalm 71:14, "But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more."  David knew with an absolute certainty that God had been with him in the past.  David also knew that the Lord would be with him in the present crisis in his life!  Notice that David was also praising God in the middle of his crisis!  We must do the same.

We can praise the Lord in all circumstances, however, only if we are trusting in God's complete faithfulness and guidance.  David said in Psalm 71:19-20, "Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, You have done great things.  Who, O God, is like You?  Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter.  You will restore my life again."  Then in Psalm 71:23 David prayed, "My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to You-I, whom You have redeemed."

Because of the Lord's past faithfulness to us, we can trust Him for today's challenges and problems.  We can also trust Him for the future challenges and problems we will face.  We can do this with a joyful heart and with a heart full of praise, because our God is a faithful God!