Always in God’s Care
Psalm 31[1]
This morning I’d like to share with you another of my
occasional stories about my experience with a particular passage of Scripture.
I’d like to share with you my journey with Psalm 31. Like many of you, I
probably first heard the words “Into your hands I commend my Spirit” from the
story of Jesus’ death on the cross in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 23:46). My first
serious Bible was a King James Version, and it had every verse divided
separately, so it was hard to tell when people in the New Testament were
quoting from the Old Testament. I soon switched to the New International
Version, and they print things differently, so you can tell when someone is
quoting from the Old Testament. That’s probably where I first noticed that
Jesus was quoting from the Psalm. I don’t remember the exact timeframe for
this, but it was a while ago.
I took my first Hebrew class in College, and then I took
the required year of Hebrew in Seminary. But I found Hebrew to be harder and
more confusing than Greek, and I wanted to try to master it. So I took a
“Hebrew Exegesis” class to help level up my skills. It wasn’t until I started
digging into the Hebrew Bible more consistently when I was in my mid- to
late-twenties that I began to notice some interesting things going on with the
language of the Hebrew Bible that weren’t always reflected in the English
translations. And I was especially drawn to the Psalms. Along with Isaiah,
they’re probably my favorite part of the Old Testament.
A case in point is the English translation of Psalm 31:5,
“Into your hands I commend my Spirit.” It sounds like a prayer someone might
pray when they’re dying. That’s likely influenced by the fact that Jesus prayed
that prayer as he was dying. But just the language of “giving up” one’s
“spirit” seems to lend itself to that understanding. When I read the verse with
that in mind, I’m not sure I really paid all that much attention to the rest of
the Psalm.
It was during the year that I spent living and studying in
Germany in 1989-90 that I really began digging into the Psalms. One of the
things I discovered about Psalm 31 is that the Hebrew word typically translated
in English as “spirit” here refers to the psalmsinger’s whole life. That
insight enabled me to read Psalm 31:5 more like “Into your hands I commend my
life,” or as the Good News Version we read today puts it, “I place
myself in your care.” It helped me see that, at least in the original context
of the Psalm this is a prayer for living!
That helped me to hear the words of the whole of Psalm 31
better. A lot of us still have a problem with just lifting out verses of the
Bible that we like. The reason that’s a problem is because we’re meant to read
the whole Bible. And in this case, that means we’re meant to read Psalm 31 as a
whole. The Psalm as a whole is the prayer of a person of faith struggling with
the painful and sometimes unfair ways people can treat us. And as I mentioned
above, Psalm 31:5 is not a prayer for dying, but a prayer for living with faith
in God, no matter. We see that in other ways in the Psalm. The psalmsinger
recounts all the hardships of his life, enemies who sought to undo him, the
anxiety and sorrow he experienced from opponents. And yet, in spite of all the
afflictions he endured, at the end of the day he could pray, “my times are in
your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Or, as the Good News Version translates it, “I am
always in your care.” With all of that in mind, it’s hard not to conclude that
the whole Psalm is a prayer of trust, a prayer of confidence in the “faithful
God” (Ps. 31:5). And the prayer “into your hands I commend my spirit” is a
motto for living, not a prayer for dying.
In Psalm 31, as in other Psalms, the psalmsinger expresses
the decision to entrust his life—his whole life—into God’s hands. That’s not an
easy decision to make. Most of us like to keep the “important parts” of our
lives in our control. But when try to do that, we learn that there is so much
about life that is outside our control. For me, knowing that we can entrust all
of that, all the things that seem too big for us, to God’s loving care relieves
us of the heavy burdens we try to carry ourselves.
One of the last stages in my journey with Psalm 31 was when
I read through the commentary on the Psalms by James Luther Mays in the
Presbyterian commentary series called Interpretation. Yes, I did
actually read through a whole commentary. I’ve done it more than once! One of
the things I like about that commentary is that Mays, who himself was a Presbyterian
Old Testament professor, really seems to pull together all the Psalms around
some key themes. It helped me to read each Psalm, not as a whole in itself, but
in the context of the entire collection of Psalms. And that only reinforced my
conviction that the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” is a motto for
living, not a prayer for dying.
One of the things that Mays does is to inform the readers
of his commentary how various Psalms have been used not only in the New
Testament, but also throughout the history of the church. It should come as no
surprise that, following Jesus’ example, a number of prominent Church leaders,
including Martin Luther, used this prayer at the end of their lives. But as
Mays says in his commentary, “in Hebrew and in the context of the psalm” the
prayer is a confession of ultimate “dependence and trust” in God. He adds that
this prayer, “Into your hands I commend my life” is essentially “a way of
saying in the midst of affliction, ‘It is up to you, God, what becomes of me,
and I am willing to have it so.’”[2] I find
that to be a wonderful way to affirm my trust in God. I think Jesus paraphrased
that prayer with his prayer in the Garden, “not my will but thine be done.”
If you think of it, what better place could we ever want to
be than in God’s loving care? What more could we want than what God wants for
us? That’s what I think about with this prayer, “It is up to you, God, what becomes
of me, and I’m willing to have it so.” When you put it that way, the prayer,
“into your hands I commend my life” really does become a prayer for living. In
fact, it has been one of my primary prayers for living for over fifteen years.
I haven’t prayed it every day. But I’ve prayed it most days. And many days I’ve
prayed it more than once. I think one of the significant spiritual
breakthroughs in my life’s journey was when I finally realized that I needed to
consciously turn to God and entrust my life, all my hopes and dreams, into his
care on a regular basis. This prayer has gotten me through a lot of up’s and
down’s in life, and I think it will continue to see me through whatever may
come in the future. Telling this story is my way of inviting you to join me in
praying the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life,” following Jesus’
example, and the example of many faithful people who have gone before us. It’s
a way of entrusting all of our lives into God’s hands. As we do so, may we
discover that our lives are always in God’s care, and that there’s no better
place we could be.
[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/29/2026 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] James Luther Mays, Psalms, 144.
No comments:
Post a Comment