All our affairs are safe in Jehovah’s hands;
without reservation therefore, we should yield ourselves to the Father’s hand to be sanctified by His grace,
devoted to His honor, employed in His service and fitted for His Kingdom.
Psalm 1
1 In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.
2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.
4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.
5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;
8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
9 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
11 I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.
12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.
13 For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
14 But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.
15 My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.
17 Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
18 Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.
19 Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!
20 Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the LORD: for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city.
22 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.
23 O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.
24 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.
Psalm 1 – J. Vernon McGee
Psalm 31:1-13 – A Cry out of Deep Trouble
Some have supposed that this psalm was written during the Sauline persecutions; but it is more likely that it dates from Absalom’s rebellion. It alternates between the depths of despondency and the heights of sublime faith, and well befits those who walk in darkness and have no light, Isaiah 50:10.
It sounds as if the soul were on a wind-swept moor, with no shelter from the storm. All is dark and wild; and it dreads to be caught in the entangling net, Psalm 31:4. What a magnificent prayer is that of Psalm 31:5! It supplied their last words to Stephen, Polycarp, Bernard, Hus, Luther, Melanchthon—above all, to our Lord, Luke 23:46; Acts 7:59. The Psalter was our Lord’s prayer book. This verse is a suitable petition also, as we go forth into the unknown day, II Timothy 1:12.
Sin, slander, neglect make the heart break; but God is all-sufficient. Hide in Him; that life is safe which is God-encompassed. “Hid with Christ in God!” Colossians 3:1-4. —Through the Bible Day by Day
Psalm 31:7—Thou hast known my soul in adversities.
Men have a way of forgetting their companions when they fall into adversity. They do not know them or visit them, or recognize them if they meet them in the street. But the love of God is always most tender and considerate then. He seeks us out when the sky is shadowed, and life is overcast with somber tints. Adversity, so far from alienating Him, draws Him closer, and brings out his tenderest, loveliest traits. He knows us in adversity.
It in only when we are overtaken by adversity that we are revealed by the innermost depths of our nature. God knows us in adversity. “Thou shalt remember,” said Moses (Deuteronomy 8:2), “all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.” What revelations of unsubdued pride and imperious self-will are afforded, when we are searched and tested by the fiery trial of pain!
Is it not enough that God should know? Need we go to all our friends and explain to them all we are called to endure? Is not this a needless addition to their sorrow, and the sorrow of the world? What a glorious piece of advice the Master gave, when He said (Matthew 6:17-18), “Anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father… which seeth in secret.”
“Thou know’st our bitterness!—our joys are thine!
No stranger Thou to all our wanderings wild!
But yet Thou call’st us Brethren! Sweet repose
Is in that word;—the Lord who dwells on high
Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows.” —Our Daily Homily
Psalm 31:14-24 – Jehovah Preserveth the Faithful
What a change ensues in the spirit of our life when we look from men and things to God! Do not look at God through circumstances, but at circumstances through God’s environing presence, as through a golden haze. Our Lord’s times were in the hands of the Father, and He would not move an inch until the clock had struck in heaven, John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20.
As God hath laid up coal and ore in the earth; and as explorers in Arctic regions deposit provisions in cairns, that those who follow in their steps, or they themselves returning, may be supplied on their march, so unsearchable riches are stored in Christ awaiting our appropriation, II Peter 1:3.
What a hiding-place is the secret of His presence! Have you ever been inside that royal withdrawing-room? God’s pavilion is sound-tight; the strife of tongues cannot penetrate. —Through the Bible Day by Day