A Place of Troubles

Meaning in Psalm 71

by Alfred D. Byrd

ONLY in God can I hope to be safe.
The world has become a place of troubles
Threatening daily distress and death.
In tempests, temblors, and tumults, I see
How fragile one's hope of life can become.
The worst of threats are neighbors who hate me.
Speaking against me, they work for my fall.
They say, "A child of God? Unlikely!
Really, he's flesh and blood like ourselves.
He feels temptations just like our own
And may fall to depths he'll share with us."
I defend myself and learn a truth.
When I fight on my own, I fall, outnumbered;
No one alone can take on the world.
When I flee, however, to God, my Rock,
I find in the heights secure defenses.
"Fortress" is one of the names of the King.
The One Who made me will keep me from harm
As long as I trust in the word of truth.

My God concealed me within a womb
And brought my mother safely to term.
My God was with me throughout my youth,
However distant I felt from the Throne.
Despite distractions of self and of world,
I learned the words revealed to seers
Sensing the Spirit Who moved in their hearts.
The words have helped me in times of troubles
Coming from nature, from humans — from God.

It isn't false witness for me to say,
"Sometimes, my troubles have come from God."
To lead me to turn from wrongs I've done,
To help me develop a strength of faith,
To teach me the folly of trusting the world,
My God has let misfortune touch me.
Often, I've failed to learn a lesson;
Nothing is easy for us of the Fall.
When I gain, however, a truth from the Throne,
I may find a hardship redeemed as blessing.

Watching the years march on, I've become
No longer a youth. How strange to be old!
As I feel my joints grow stiff and painful,
Confidence falters. Facing the world,
I think, "Have I lost my use to God?"
I feel like a car with a lot of miles;
It makes sense for God to make a trade
Replacing a wreck with something with style.
This wreck, however, has mastered lessons
Worthy of passing to youths on the rise.
They seem as naïve as I was first.
Please let me, my God, keep speaking of You.
Let me send to the world the truth it needs:
"Our lives are empty unless our God
Has filled us with purpose, to love and be loved
With the love that starts and ends in the One."

Let's pray and look for an age to come
In which our God is enthroned in light
Amid a world both peaceful and holy.
Harpists, flutists, and singers as one—
May we praise with joy the One on the Throne—
The One in Whom our lives are renewed.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.