But I Trust

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 302, But I Trust.

Psalm 13:5. Listen closely:

"But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation."

But I have trusted.

Do you know what comes before that verse? Four questions from someone at the end of their rope. David cries out: How long, O Lord? How long will you hide your face? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts? Four times he asks. Four times the silence seems to answer. And then — with nothing around him having changed — comes that one word: but. A single syllable. And it turns everything upside down.

Faith does not deny the pain. It doesn't paste a smile over an open wound or pretend the suffering isn't real. What it does is this — it says: the pain is real, and God is real. And God is greater.

This love David speaks of — in Hebrew, hesed — is not a feeling that comes and goes with the weather. It is God's covenant love, His loyal, unbreakable love, the love He cannot abandon because it is His very character. It does not depend on your circumstances. It does not depend on how you woke up this morning. He does not waver when you waver. He does not disappear when the night closes in. The hesed of God is solid ground beneath your feet even when you cannot feel the ground.

And notice how David speaks: "I have trusted" — right now. Not "one day I'll trust when things get better." Not "I'm waiting for the sky to clear." He trusts now, in the middle of the crisis, before any answer has arrived. Because trusting God's love does not wait for clear skies — it rests on knowing who holds the helm.

Then David says: my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. In the New Testament, that word — salvation — took on flesh and a name. Jesus. The joy David was reaching toward out there in the wilderness, we know up close: the One who came and paid the price of steadfast love with His own life. Every time you read that verse, you are touching a promise that crossed centuries and was fulfilled on a cross.

And I want you to stay here for a moment. The biblical joy that David carries in the middle of that anguish — it is not manufactured happiness. It is not performance. It is the unshakeable certainty that God has not abandoned you. It can coexist with tears. It can be present in exhaustion, in doubt, in the night that feels like it has no end. What sustains it is not your mood — it is His faithfulness.

So today, do this one thing: before breakfast, before you reach for your phone, place your hand on your chest and say out loud — not in your head, out loud — "But I have trusted in your steadfast love." Do not wait until you feel it first. Declare it before the feeling comes. Let truth lead your heart, not the other way around. That is how faith works — it speaks before the feelings catch up.

That "but" David wrote is your "but" today. Use it.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.