“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Psalms 56:3
It is no unusual thing for the Lord’s people to be cast down, and filled with tormenting fears. They fear their faith is presumption, their hope delusion, and that they shall one day disgrace that holy name by which they are called. They fear to rely on a naked promise, and want comfortable feeling to underprop their faith. But they should take up the Psalmist’s resolution, ” What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Jehovah in Jesus is the only proper object of trust, and He should be trusted at all times. Beloved, it is well when we can say, “I will depend upon the faithful promise of my gracious God; I will rely on the free grace of my adorable Saviour; I will hope in covenant mercy for evermore; I will fly to my Father’s bosom and venture all in my Saviour’s hands.” Let us trust in God, in opposition to frames and feelings. Let us trust in covenant love, though providence appears to frown. Our God has said, “Trust ye in the Lord forever.” Here is our warrant, let us seek grace to say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.”
Oh, let me then at length be taught
What I am still so slow to learn,
That God is love, and changes not,
Nor knows the shadow of a turn:
To cast on Him my anxious cares,
And triumph o’er my doubts and fears. —James Smith, 1840
