Your promise still stands,
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness.
I’m still in Your hands.
This is my confidence:
You’ve never failed me yet.
Elevation Worship has a song called “Do It Again” that is high on the CCLI and music app charts for the genre. It’s a strong tune with a driving beat and a lot of room to rock out with the worship band, yet the song also has a heartfelt, universally relatable theme, somewhat like a prayer:
God, this bad situation hasn’t changed yet, but I’m trusting You while I’m in the middle of it.
My wife and I both love the song, and I worked it into a testimony at church, relating a particular instance of God’s goodness to my family in the midst of a crisis (which I’ll share in another post).
However, my wife is not at all a fan of one word in the song: yet.
“God hasn’t failed us at all,” she explains, “and He’s not going to. We may not always get the answers we want, but God doesn’t let us down… and that word ‘yet’ makes it sound like maybe He might.”
I agree.
And yet…
To me, there’s this humanity, this frailty revealed in that wording. There’s a weakness that lurks in the lyrics just like it lurks in my heart, where even though I belt out that “This is my confidence: You’ve never failed me,” a little choked up voice adds a “yet” with a quiver or whimper.
Doubt whispers that maybe this is the one time. This is the exception. “Yeah, God came through before, but how sure are you?”
Maybe what I thought God was going to do isn’t what He has planned. Maybe the storm isn’t going to miraculously clear up and the waves aren’t going to suddenly fall into calm. Maybe He’s not going to say, “Peace, be still” this time.
I do have a testimony to share about how God met me and my family at a point of desperation and need. I have plenty of evidence of His goodness expressed through others and through sudden changes in our circumstances.
But I also see some dark clouds of the unknown looming over me, and the horizon is dimmed by billowing storms of delayed answers to prayers. It feels like as soon as one batch of questions and concerns are resolved, they tag new ones into the ring.
I apologize as I’m vaguebooking a bit here (we’re not on Facebook, so, blankblogging? blurposting?) mainly because I don’t even know all the questions or details of some of what’s on my mind.
One of the memory verses I am reviewing this week is Isaiah 41:10. It feels more appropriate than I would like.
“’Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’”
Isaiah 41:10 NASB
I also relate all too well to the man who–in response to the assurance that with God, all things are possible–cried out, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
Surely He helps us in times like this. Great is His faithfulness, and His promises still stand. He’s never failed me…
Yet.