Monday, January 25, 2010

Soul Hope

“Lord, I turn my hope to You.” (Psalm 25:1)

The King James Version of Psalm 25:1 reads, “Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” The Revised Standard Version reads, “To Thee, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” The New American Standard Bible reads, “To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” Most other versions say the same thing. So why does the Holman Christian Standard Bible read, “I turn my hope to You.”?

The Holman version seems to translate the idea. When someone lifts his or her soul to the Lord, it is essentially reaching out in the hope that God will respond with His gracious blessing. Hope, after all, is something that we each hold in our hearts and in our souls.

Sometimes folks feel like they don’t have much hope. Some may reach such a point of despair because of circumstances they face that they even feel that they have no hope. But hope is actually something we can control. It’s a little bit like words. We formulate them in our minds, and then we speak them. In a similar way, hope is something that is always there, and we can direct it wherever we want it to go. David knew this, and he knew that the hope of his life was something he could turn toward God and trust to God. Thus, lifting the soul to God is the same thing as turning one’s hope toward God in trust.

Lord, We turn our hope to You today and trust it to You. Amen.

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