God-Confidence!

Psalm 71:5-12
5 For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord,
    my confidence since my youth.
6 From birth I have relied on you;
    you brought me forth from my mother’s womb.
    I will ever praise you.
7 I have become a sign to many;
    you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with your praise,
    declaring your splendor all day long.
9 Do not cast me away when I am old;
    do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
10 For my enemies speak against me;
    those who wait to kill me conspire together.
11 They say, “God has forsaken him;
    pursue him and seize him,
    for no one will rescue him.”
12 Do not be far from me, my God;
    come quickly, God, to help me.

Today the psalmist recounts how he has put his trust in God all throughout his life. He even acknowledges that his birth is from God and started his reliance on God.  Think of infant baptism in a similar way, as God chooses us in our baptism. We can see him working in us before we could choose him. 

Then he says, “You have been my confidence since my youth”.  We will often say someone has a lot of “self-confidence”.  While this is not necessarily a bad thing, we can have a greater confidence by putting our hope in God.  We might call it “God-confidence”.  We can have confidence knowing that nothing is going to happen to us outside of God’s will and sovereign control.  We can be confident in God whereas we can even let ourselves down.   

Finally, he says, “Do not cast me away when I am old.”  The psalmist had relied on God since birth, had confidence him since his youth, and now he trusts in God as he grows old.  Though those around him think that God has left him, he knows that God will deliver him as God has done his whole life.  You can see through his whole life he has put his trust in God in different ways at different times.

As you look back on your life I am sure you can remember different stages of your faith development.  As a young person where you learned to rely on God for your self-confidence. And later in life when God continues to honor you despite your growing old.  At each step in our faith journey we can look at the times God has been faithful to us in the past.  This helps us to have even more confidence especially when we face an uncertain future. 

Where is your faith being tested right now?  How can you remain confident for God to deliver you now, based on how he has delivered you in the past?    Take some time to write down your faith history and its important milestones. Thank God that he has always been with you and never forsaken you!  And you can be confident that he will not stop now!


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