Sunday, January 25, 2026

Daily Devotion

Today's Scripture
Psalm 56

Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me; all day long foes oppress me;
my enemies trample on me all day long, for many fight against me. O Most High,
when I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I am not afraid; what can flesh do to me?
All day long they seek to injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps. As they hoped to have my life,
so repay them for their crime; in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?
Then my enemies will retreat in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?
My vows to you I must perform, O God; I will render thank offerings to you.
For you have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life. (NRSV)

Among the things the scribes and elders hold against Jesus is that he trusts in God. At his crucifixion, they taunt him, according to Matthew, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to.”

Persecution and adversity are the crucible of trust in scripture. The Psalm we read today is one Jesus would have known well, and it professes the kind of trust in God we see exhibited by Jesus. That kind of trust is not abstract or theoretical. It is concrete, tested by opposition and the ill-intended.

Most of the admonitions to trust in God you’ll find in scripture are in the psalms, and it is quite remarkable to note how many of those admonitions spring from a context of struggle. My “Updated Edition” of the NRSV spells this out in the headings:

Psalm 3, “Trust in God Under Adversity.”

Psalm 5, “Trust in God for Deliverance from Enemies.”

And our psalm for today, Psalm 56, “Trust in God under Persecution.”

I’m forced to paraphrase here, but I distinctly recall reading in C. S. Lewis’s book on the psalms that in order to understand them properly, the modern reader must sympathize with the experience of the oppressed and abused, for that is so often the perspective of the psalmist. It kind of made me feel like I couldn’t understand them; most of my life’s paths have been unimpeded by the kind of discrimination and abuse the psalmist knows intimately; I have mostly been able to pursue the things I want to pursue.

But perhaps the faithful trust we are exhorted to here is more than a matter of individual imagination or, if it applies, will. James L. Mays explains about the psalms’ expressions of trust in God that “Trust is not an independent act of human will. In Israel it was a response to salvation and to the promise of salvation.”

We profess a bedrock trust in God in the midst of trial because we have experienced God’s good provision before. We have. You and me and all the people today and yesterday who have laid claim to the story of a people called by God to bless all the families of the earth, no matter what comes. This is our story. We borrow struggle from one another just as we borrow faith and celebration.

Prayer

God of grace and glory, you have called us to take hold of eternal life. Help us to run with resolution the race that lies before us, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. May he always be to us the pattern we follow, the redeemer we trust, the Lord we serve, and the friend to whom we turn. Keep us faithful till death, and bring us at the last into your eternal presence to receive the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Taken from the Church of Scotland Book of Common Order)

Reflection written by Rocky Supinger, Senior Associate Pastor