Common Ground Song 106 ‘Safe in the shadow of the Lord’
Words: © Timothy Dudley-Smith  / Music: Norman Warren © Jubilate Hymns
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sclDVUOW80c
Featured image: Etal Castle, Northumberland © Stephen Craven

The third in a series of posts on hymn settings of psalms, in this instance Psalm 90. These ancient Hebrew poems have inspired Jewish and Christian writers and musicians in every generation.

This is a song of trust in God in all circumstances. In the first verse, God is our ‘fortress and tower’, an image used in many places in the Bible, no doubt a reflection of the almost constant risk of war in those much disputed lands of the Near East. Let’s continue to pray for the people of Israel, Palestine and surrounding areas as warfare continues in our day, that they may find refuge in God/YHWH/Allah (same deity, different name).

The subsequent verses refer to other sorts of threats we encounter: ‘Satan’s snare’ meaning the temptations we face daily, whether our own regular weaknesses and addictions, or external ones; ‘fears and phantoms of the night’ meaning the troubled state of our own mind when our life is uncertain and unknown or unquantifiable risks abound; and the ‘stones’ (unexpected or unnoticed hazards) that might trip us up. Life is not certain, easy and comfortable for long, and for some people never is. Pray today for those who constantly fight their demons, phantoms and stumbling-blocks, who seem unable to lift themselves from the ‘pit’ of despair or oppression. Only God can do that. May they trust in him.

The last two verses are more positive: we trust in God who offers an ‘everlasting name’, a ‘father’s care’, and ‘love divine’. Whatever life throws at us, his love never leaves us, he will eventually call us home to him, and it is that God in whom we trust. Fortress, rescuer and loving Father.