The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
The Habit of Trust
Have you ever wondered where the little prayer “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, Lord I pray my soul to take” came from. I do not know the origin of it, but I can see in Scripture the motivation of it. Psalm 4:5-8 gives us a peek into the assurance of safety, even for the Old Testament saints.
“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD. Many say, ‘Who will show us good?’ LORD, lift up the light of your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.”
Deuteronomy 33:12 specifies a more pastoral picture of the loving shepherd with “…the beloved of the LORD shall dwell in safety by Him; and the LORD shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.”
While the New Testament talks in terms of casting our care on Him and the inner spiritual peace that is activated by trust in God, the Old Testament deals with the harsh cultural reality in which the most powerful man with the biggest army became a leader because he had the means of protecting people from hostile and cruel neighbors. As Psalm 21:31 shows that there is nothing we can do to prepare for or protect ourselves from danger. “The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD.”
Never before have I understood this more than when we were involved in our head-on collision last summer. No matter how we try to protect ourselves, we do not know what is around the corner for us. But God does. During our collision, safety was not a matter of being spared that accident, but it was about God’s presence and His incredible peace with us in that car. Dan was not spared the pain of surgery last week, but God, through that surgery is healing him of a number of issues.
As the little prayer shows, safety is not always about being spared pain or death. Richard Wurmbrand and Corrie Ten Boom were both imprisoned and suffered a great deal for their beliefs. And yet many people have come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior as a result of their accounts of God’s peace and care of them during those years. God’s idea of protection and safety is the peace and hope that comes from the spiritual practice of trustfully lifting our eyes to Him so that when we are ensnared by trials, we remain in that place of peace and hope in God because it is habit. Oh to be in that place where His strength for the journey is accessible during the storm because it has become the custom of the righteous soul to commune with Him when the waters are not stormy.
