If thou but suffer God to guide thee

The language is old fashioned, but this is a beautiful hymn. If you know God as your loving Father, you can know that everything you experience is from his loving hand. Neither world events, nor your personal life circumstances, occur by random chance. They are guided by a God who is good, wise, kind and powerful. There are certainly forces of evil at work in the world, but if God is your refuge, you don’t need to fear them either. He’s the one who is utterly in control, over all. We all go through ups and downs in life, hills and valleys, joys and sorrows, comfort and pain. Sometimes the valleys can be very deep, and the pain can feel almost too much to bear. But the God who is over all, and who one day will right all the wrongs, is willing and ready to be your God, too, and give you strength and hope in the midst of every circumstance in life. If you know this God, keep singing; keep praying; keep trusting in his Word; keep looking to Jesus; do your own part faithfully. His love is unchanging, he knows all our needs, and we are safe in him.


If thou but suffer God to guide thee,
and hope in him through all your ways,
he’ll give you strength, whate’er betide thee,
and bear thee through the evil days:
who trusts in God’s unchanging love
builds on the Rock that naught can move. 

What can these anxious cares avail thee,
these never ceasing moans and sighs?
What can it help, if thou bewail thee
o’er each dark moment as it flies?
Our cross and trials do but press 
the heavier for our bitterness.

Only be still, and wait his leisure 
in cheerful hope, with heart content 
to take whate’er thy Father’s pleasure
and all-discerning love hath sent; 
nor doubt our inmost wants are known
to him who chose us for his own.

All are alike before the Highest;
‘tis easy to our God, we know,
to raise thee up, though low thou liest,
to make the rich man poor and low;
true wonders still by him are wrought,
who setteth up and brings to naught.

Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,
so do thine own part faithfully,
and trust his Word - though undeserving,
thou yet shalt find it true for thee;
God never yet forsook at need
the soul that trusted him indeed. 

Georg Neumark 

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