Psalm 71:14
But I will hope continually,
and will praise thee yet more and more.
Life in this world is basically a matter of fighting a rear-guard action against the encroachments of age, decay and death. As the old saying goes, “Nothing gold can stay.” Paul recognized this long ago when he told the Romans that “the creation was subjected to futility”. It is the same grief that afflicted the poet Vergil when he spoke of the “tears of things” and the same grief that afflicts the earnest man of the world in his mid-life crisis as he looks back on his fading youth and forward to a dwindling life of quiet desperation. Thanks be to God, this world is not all there is, however.
That is why the psalmist can hope”really hope”continually and we who share in the life of Christ can praise God yet more and more. For to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity is to share in an inexhaustible life that does not decay but goes from grace to grace and glory to glory. Even death itself only adds to the triumphal procession that follows in his train. Today, praise God that you have a future and a hope in Christ Jesus.
