Psalm 71:1-6 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 71:1-6 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.
Verse 2In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
Verse 3Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
Verse 4Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
Verse 5For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Verse 6Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.
Devotion
Again...from the womb. Young Jeremiah heard that he was set apart "before being created in the womb." The aged psalmist declares God's dependability, known since the moment of birth. God "cut the cord" as the child emerged from the mother's womb. Of course neither Jeremiah nor the psalmist actually recalled those prenatal and infant moments; they recognized God’s actions in retrospect.
And yet, I notice that the psalmist's time frame is churning. Verb tenses jump from having taken refuge in the past to pleading for deliverance now and to be ever shielded from shame.
In this swirling experience, how is it that the singer is able always to be praising God? Maybe hope is the still point? Perhaps it is because faith grows out of trust learned from the past and flowers into hope that allows us to see what God has done and then to rely on God from our birth into the future.
Prayer
My God, you have been with me since before I drew a breath, and you sustain my life in the rhythm of exhalation and inhalation. As I rely upon you for air, teach me to trust you for all things until my final breath. Amen.