Bartel Elshout
“Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your
heart before him: God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8).
David wrote this psalm at one of the most trying and unsettling seasons of his life—a time when he faced the revolt of his son Absalom. How keenly did Israel’s mighty monarch perceive his vulnerability and his utter dependence upon God! In a sense he experienced afresh what he had experienced when Saul relentlessly pursued him as a partridge in the mountains. It was again the great need of the hour that transformed David into a humble suppliant before God.
We too live in trying and unsettling times. How profitable it would be for us and our children if these troubling circumstances would compel us to seek God’s face earnestly—the God who holds our unknown future firmly in His sovereign and omnipotent hands! Our annual Prayer Day is a tangible reminder that the people of God must face the future prayerfully, and that we are to cast all our burdens upon a God who has cared for us until this day, and will do so in the future.
Our text sets before us a compelling exhortation to do just that, instructing us when, how, and why we must trust in God. What need we have of such an exhortation, as we are so inclined toward unbelief and its companion vice, prayerlessness! How inclined we are to trust in ourselves and our ability to manage the circumstances of our lives, doing so far more often than we are willing to admit. When such reliance upon self prevails, our prayer life is often reduced to a mere formality. A keen sense of our utter dependency upon the God in whom we live, move, and have our being will then be lacking—though we may acknowledge it with our lips. Often the Lord therefore brings us in perplexing circumstances in order to revive and restore our prayer life, compelling us afresh to “trust in Him at all times.”
Given who God is and who He has proven Himself to be, how worthy He is that we should indeed trust in Him at all times! Until this moment God has never failed to be true to His Word and its precious promises. No one has ever put his trust in Him in vain. He has always proven to be our Refuge and Strength, and a very present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1–2). David also confesses this in Psalm 22:4, saying, “Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.”
We may therefore put our trust at all times in a God whose promises will be yea and amen in Christ. That precious truth prompted the psalmist to say, “Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word” (Ps. 119:114).
How instructive it also is that David exhorts us to trust God “at all times”! We are to trust in Him regardless what our circumstances are or may be. We are to trust in Him in times of prosperity as well as in times of either temporal or spiritual adversity; and we are to trust Him when we face a very uncertain future. During all these times, we are to confess with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15), and with David, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee” (Ps. 56:3).
How sweet it is when we may so trust the Lord at all times that the words of the psalmist are applicable to us: “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Ps. 112:7). Such will be true if we truly believe that our times are always in God’s hands, that not a single hair on our head can fall to the ground without the will of our heavenly Father, that all things must and shall work together for our spiritual good, and that our God will never forsake the work of His own hands.
God affirms this so sweetly when He declares, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Isa. 49:15–16).
How are we then to trust in this God at all times? By pouring out our heart before Him! How blessed it is when we may do what David himself did when he says, “I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble” (Ps. 142:2); when we may do what Jeremiah exhorts us to do, saying, “Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord” (Lam. 2:19); and when by thus pouring out our hearts before Him we may heed another of David’s exhortations, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Ps. 37:5)!
May the words of our text therefore govern our prayer life—also in the season before us. The apostle Paul sums this up beautifully when he writes, “Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6). Therefore trust at all times in a God who for Christ’s sake will continue to be a refuge for us.
Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.