When Lyrics Speak - I Can Trust Jesus

A friend and I were talking after a gospel concert a few weeks ago. She's new to Southern Gospel, and she's either humoring me by going with me to concerts and watching online clips, or she really has taken a liking to it. She said something after that concert that really struck me as the heart of why I love Southern Gospel. She said that it's encouraging and uplifting and makes her happy. That's what this genre should consistently be about and focused on: pointing people to Christ and encouraging and uplifting believers.

Difficult moments in my life can often be defined by a song that helped me get through them. I love when lyrics in a song grab your heart strings and speak to you when just plain words can fail. There are so many songs that have spoke to me in moments when I needed them. It's so funny to me that sometimes I can listen to a song over and over again, but it's when I need it most that the lyric just hits me, and it all clicks.

So my plan is to regularly post about moments when lyrics speak. And here's my first attempt.

I remember when "I Can Trust Jesus" by the Collingsworth Family really hit home with me for the first time. I had gone home to visit my parents for the weekend. And things were just different. I was questioning where God had me and some things that were going on in my family at the time. I couldn't understand the way that God was working in my life and those closest to me. His plan did not make sense.

Before I went to bed that night, I had this song on my iPod. I know I had heard the song before, but listening to it that night, it just hit me. I'm not even sure what made me play this song, but God knew that I needed to hear it.

It's such a simple lyric and message, "I can trust Jesus, He is my strong tower, the strength in my weakest hour." The simplest messages and truths are many times the most difficult things to do and also what we need to hear the most. He never once has failed to meet our needs. That night even though things weren't they way I wanted them to be, God was meeting all my needs. It was the simple reassurance I needed.

I love the second verse of this song: "I have prayed some prayers and felt they never were heard But I held to God’s hand and kept right on trusting in His word, My wants and God’s desires don’t always agree, But I lean on His will for He always knows what’s best for me."

My prayers often don't get answered the way I want them to. And what I want to happen in my life is not God's desire, but I can trust Him, because He knows what's best for me. We all have days where we don't understand what God is up to and we feel like He's not hearing our prayers, but this song is such a great reminder that He knows what is best. He's the only one who knows the ending; He has us where we are for a reason.

I constantly need to be reminded of this message. Many times when I continue to struggle with God's plan, this is the song that I go to. I've been learning lately that it's a daily decision, to get up and say, "I choose to trust You today. God, I don't know what's going to happen, but I choose to trust." And when the moments come when I'm not so sure about why things are happening the way they are, the message of this song rings true. He is more than worthy of my trust, because He is God and "He never once has failed to meet my need."