I Put My Trust in You

In April of last year after a long hard week of conference a wonderful friend of mine came to visit for the evening. Friday night we stayed up late talking and catching up and then went to bed. I said a quick prayer as I laid my exhausted head on my pillow and fell asleep. About 30 minutes later I woke up singing, "Lord I put my trust in You and I place my life in your hands. I put all my hope in you and I surrender all that I am." It kept rolling over and over in my head and spirit so I grabbed my trusty cell phone with it's voice recorder and sang it in to the phone. Not too loud as not to wake my friend sleeping in the adjacent room, but I knew I had to preserve what I was hearing. The rest of the framework of the song came easily. Though I knew it wasn't perfect and would need to be applied to the criteria for effective worship songs it was in its rawest form a piece of my heart.

You see the conversation of the night before was both wonderful and bittersweet. It brought a great time of catching up with a Godsend of a friend, but it also brought the revelation of the death of some hopes that I had been holding on to. I knew something was going on, but that night all was confirmed. Though I couldn't be surprised because God had been preparing my heart for such information, there was a lot to be walked out. Somehow in the initial moments and hours of enlightenment I knew that God was still good and though I didn't understand why everything had happened if it was going to turn out the way it did, He was faithful, He had a plan and He could be trusted.

It was several months before I sat down with our worship leader to take my lyrics and melody and make them into a song. The process went fairly smoothly. We reworked some words, rearranged some things and in the end had most of the original only better. I'll never forget sitting on the other side of his desk having just recorded a scratch track when tears filled my eyes. I had underestimated how finally releasing this prayer of my heart would effect me.

In the months since that day the song has been both a blessing and a curse at times. There have been days when the words couldn't be truer and others where trust was a very hard concept to grasp. More recently numb would more accurately describe my feelings towards my song, its message and its story, until yesterday.

I can't pinpoint what the shift was. We practiced it pre-service and I felt much the same as I had recently. Being that it was in the middle of the list I had serious doubts we would even get to it. We hadn't the last 4 or 5 times it had been on the list, and as our worship goes it didn't surprise me. But as we neared time for communion our pastor stepped over and asked the worship leader to do my song. About halfway through the song once again hope began to rise in my heart. I don't know why. I don't know what for, but finally again I felt my heart agreeing with the words I was singing.

Even now tears well up in my eyes as I think about how trustworthy He is. Grant it over the last 10 years a lot of things have not worked out as I would have liked them too, but in retrospect I can see how in His infinite wisdom He was saving me much pain and heartache. It feels like a lot is up in the air right now, but I keep on pressing forward. "For I know the plans you have for me, plans for good and not for evil. For I know the plans you have for me, plans to bless me and give me destiny." His plans are good. His thoughts are towards me and if I will stop striving, stop trying to figure things out, stop trying to be someone other than me, He will take care of it all.

In April our newest praise and worship CD will be released and I Put My Trust in You will be on it. Finally after a year it will be released to bring hope and peace to others the way it has to me. I've been frustrated at times that it hasn't made it on any of our EPs, but I'm starting to think that God had in mind the perfect time for it to be produced. We've been singing it for a year, and now, more than ever we are a people in need of hope, in need of trusting God to take care of it all.


I Put My Trust in You

Your love gives me peace beyond peace
Your word gives me strength to hope beyond hope
I know what You have said to me
Through Your promise I can trust in You

Lord I put my trust in You
And I place my life in Your hands
I put all my hope in You
And I surrender all that I am

For I know the plans you have for me
Plans for good and not for evil
For I know the plans you have for me
Plans to bless me
And give me destiny