O God, my heart is quiet and confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! Psalm 57:7
“Control seems preferable to what we typically think of as its opposite—chaos. But I want to suggest that the opposite of control is not chaos. It is trust, and trust is far preferable to control. We want to control because we fear the outcome of letting God be in control. We fear we won’t be taken care of, won’t have what we need, or will be taken advantage of. But trying to be in control is futile, because in reality there is very little that we can control.”
― Dave Samples, Messed Up Men of the Bible
I love confident hopeful songs because they inspire me! I look for them everywhere, and when I find them, I create posts for them on my blogs or playlists on You tube.
There is just something threaded throughout a song like that. There is hope, yes, but can I suggest that there is also “a trust in God” that has been born in a crucible of some kind? You see, I don’t think you get up one day and decide to write a song that will inspire hope just because you want to. I don’t think it works like that.
Confident songs come from an experience.
Sometime, somewhere, the writer has experienced something (probably at great cost to themselves or someone else) and out of that “fire” has come a confident comfort and hope to give to others.
F. B. Meyer said,
There is a great distinction between shining and burning: shining is the light-giving, the illuminating, that comes forth from the enkindled wick; but it cannot shine unless it burns. The candle that gives light wastes inch by inch as it gives it. The very wick of your lamp, that conducts the oil to the flame, chars, and you have to cut it off bit by bit until the longest coil is at length exhausted. We must never forget that, if we would shine, we must burn. Too many of us want to shine, but are not prepared to pay the cost that must be faced by every true man that wants to illuminate his time.”
I love how Paul puts this “confident trust process” across to us in the fifth chapter of Romans:
So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady. Then, when that happens, we are able to hold our heads high no matter what happens and know that all is well, for we know how dearly God loves us, and we feel this warm love everywhere within us because God has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. [Romans 5: 1-5]
C. S. Lewis said, “Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”
That’s the deal.
Out of suffering hope is born—hope for ourselves—and hope for others. It is the cost of bringing comfort.
Amy Carmichael said, “The word comfort is from two Latin words meaning “with” and “strong” – He is with us to make us strong. Comfort is not soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love.”
So let us tell our broken stories; so let us sing our songs of hope; so let us dress the wounds of others in distress. —woundresser
O God, have pity, for I am trusting you! …My enemies have set a trap for me. Frantic fear grips me. They have dug a pitfall in my path. But look! They themselves have fallen into it! O God, my heart is quiet and confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! Psalm 57 TLB
Women With Destiny 