My favorite scripture is apt to change with my circumstances. One verse speaks to this battle, another speaks to that. But with seven powerful verses bundled together, How Firm a Foundation speaks to every condition, which makes it my favorite hymn no matter what’s happening.
This is admittedly a lengthy hymn. Unfortunately, that often means it gets hacked to pieces. Church has gone overtime, and now seven verses of closing hymn? We’ll get home faster if we only sing some of them. So, we let the beginning, middle, and end suffice and adjourn the meeting.
Meanwhile, we’ve missed half the story.
No one with a crucial message only relays every other word. So why should a hymn with a crucial message only have every other verse sung?
That’s why I play them all. Not just because I love them all, although I do, but because I need them all.
The Faith That Lays a Firm Foundation
In sickness, in health, poverty, or wealth. At home or abroad, on the land or the sea. In deep waters and fiery trials. Through all our lives, even down to old age, God is there. Giving succor as our days demand. Strengthening, helping, and upholding us. Keeping our heads above water, shielding us from the flames. Sanctifying and refining us. Proving his eternal, unchangeable love.
Never, ever forsaking us, though all hell beats at the door.
That’s the promise this hymn makes, or rather the promise this hymn assures us God has made. And it’s incredibly comforting. If we can believe it.
Whether or not the author intended it, it’s fitting that before spending six verses enumerating everything that firm foundation does for us, we’re reminded first of what is required from us. There can only be a firm foundation of help, strength, succor, protection, and love if we have enough faith in God’s word to lay it.
Easier said than done.
Well, perhaps not so much in the beginning. For me, at least, faith to lay the foundation isn’t hard to come by. Who wouldn’t start slapping mortar on the bricks with some enthusiasm if they had a promise that building there meant they could stand through anything? It sounds like a good deal.
Maintaining faith in the foundation, though, when life tests its strength and it feels like God’s not keeping that promise to hold you up–that’s another story. But, like each verse of this hymn, a necessary one.
The Test of a Firm Foundation
God doesn’t promise to spare us deep waters or fiery trials. In fact, he plans them. “When through the deep waters I call thee to go.”
Building a firm foundation does not mean storms will never beat against it. Only that it will stand when they do.
But doubts are abundant when things start shaking. Will it hold? Is it holding? Mostly it looks and sounds and feels like it’s all falling apart. And then you question everything you believed in and wonder if you really built on the rock or just something you thought was the rock.
Heavenly Father, are you really there? Do you really love me? Did I veer off course somewhere? Completely mess up? Lose favor with you? Where are you? What are you doing?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called these questions and a dozen more into the whirlwind.
Almost invariably, it’s the first verse of this hymn that answers back.
What more can I say than to you I have said?
It seems like that should be reassuring. Actually, it’s extremely frustrating because what he said doesn’t feel true at that dire moment. That’s why I’m asking the questions. Tell me once and for all what is true!
But once and for all, he only tells me he’s already told me the truth. He promised he would help me. That the waves wouldn’t drown me but sanctify me. That the fire wouldn’t harm me but refine me. And that if I leaned on him, he not only would not but could not desert me.
He’s made more personal promises, too. More than just a generic, “I’ll help you,” he’s spoken to my specific desires and heartaches through scriptures that jump off the page as though he put them there just for me and bringing words to my mind I don’t think I made up.
What more can he say?
So what more can I do? If my faith is true, I’ll keep building where I am, floods and fires notwithstanding.
The Proof of a Firm Foundation
That’s not to say that fighting fires and treading water ever really gets easier. Maybe a little. The longer you go without actually burning or drowning, the greater your faith that God really meant it when he said he wouldn’t let you. And you can’t deny it’s built some powerful muscle you never knew you had or needed.
But it’s still exhausting. You’ve prayed and cried and prayed and cried. Given up and started again, given up and started again. And after months, years, maybe even decades of trial and sorrow, there comes a point where the only prayer you have left is to give Heavenly Father a taste of his own medicine.
What more can I say than to you I have said?
I think he accepts that.
In fact, perhaps that’s the point where you and God have become true friends. When neither of you has to say anything anymore. You just look at each other and know.
I look at him and know he’s got my back. He’s told me he does.
He looks at me and knows I’m worn from the battle. I’ve told him I am.
Because he knows I’m worn, I know he’ll be the strength I don’t have.
Because I know he’s my strength, he knows I won’t give up the fight.
And we smile. Because we understand each other. Trust each other to be where we need to be and do what we need to do.
That’s a foundation no storm can move.
Of course, the storm will leave its mark. A house that stands through a tornado looks like it’s been through a tornado. Shattered windows impaled by tree branches, missing shingles, yard in complete disarray.
But it stood.
Lean on Jesus and you will, too.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 43:2
Thank you for reading. I hope the message of this hymn offers you as much strength and hope as it does me and that you’ll pass it on to others.
“How Firm a Foundation” Lyrics
Words attributed to Robert Keen Music attributed to J. Ellis How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent word! What more can he say than to you he hath said, You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled? In every condition, in sickness, in health, In poverty's vale or abounding in wealth, At home or abroad, on the land or the sea, As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be. Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, For I am thy God and will still give thee aid; I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow, For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. E'en down to old age, all my people shall prove My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love; And then, when gray hair shall their temples adorn, Like lambs shall they still in my bosom be borne. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake!
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