Many scholars believe that the writer of Psalm 71 was older, looking back over the course of a long life when he or she wrote this song. We get clues:

For you, O Lord, are my hope,

    my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

So even to old age and gray hairs,

    O God, do not forsake me,

Upon you I have leaned from my birth…

As the poet looks back over the span of life, she remembers… She remembers how God had carried her, rescued her, delivered her in the past. In fact, we see this all throughout the psalms — a remembering, a recalling, a retelling. And in that remembering, there is hope.

Several years ago now, as a part of one of our worship services, I invited our congregation to take a few moments to reflect on those moments when God carried each of them through a wilderness. I asked if they were willing to write out the stories and share them. And they did. I received story after story about how God carried them through cancer, through addiction, and through incredible loss.

I wonder if you were to think back over the span of your life… I wonder if you were to complete the statement, “God, you were with me even when…” — what stories might you have to tell? What witness might you raise? What hope might arise?

Today, take just a few moments to reflect. Write it out into prayer. And as you do, may you give thanks and praise.

Let us pray: Gracious God, thank you for those times when you have carried us through the wilderness of life. Time and again, you have rescued; you have saved. Therefore, as we face the future, we remember, and we have hope; through Christ our Redeemer. Amen.