Cody Jensen
Worship Leader & Songwriter
Trust / / Lyrics
written by Aaron Luttenegger & Cody Jensen ©2018 First Free Music Publishing (BMI) CCLI Song #7099244 All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
Though I walk through the valley You guide my steps and your promises are true
Your promises are true
My soul restored in Your presence
Unfailing love, Your promises are true
Your promises are true
/ /
I will dwell in the house of the Lord,
I will dwell in You
I will trust you, Lord,
in my darkest hour
I will trust you, Lord,
even in the fire
Oh my soul rejoice,
and know that
the Lord is good
/ /
The word made flesh walked among us
The truth,the life, my heart is won for you
My heart is won for you
The king of glory is risen
You’ve robbed the grave,
my heart is won for you
my heart is won for you
/ /
Teach me, Father, to know Your ways
And to never doubt Your grace
“You track all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” - Psalm 56:8
It was a Monday.
I just rolled into work at our Winona campus, ready to start another week of ministry. The start of my week usually begins with some kind soaking prayer and worship (it helps after a weekend of pouring out, to start your week getting poured into) and pacing the chairs of the worship center to pray over them. Then I got a phone call.
It was my Mom. My sister just had a miscarriage.
This had happened once before. It blindsided our family since we’d not experienced it before. But this time was different. This was the “rainbow baby”, the promise after the disappointment. We had prayed for protection and full term. My sister loves Jesus, she’s done everything right. If anyone deserved a child, it’d be her.
The first time I was mad at Satan, this time I was mad at God.
Then I did something I’ve never done before (nor would I recommend to anyone.) I grabbed my guitar pulled an empty seat in front of me and said, “God…you sit here. And I’m going to yell at you.”
Irreverent and inappropriate? Probably. I had some moments of repenting later…but I was lost in discouragement. My sister was hurting. My family was hurting. I was hurting. I started playing my guitar with full intention of letting God know of everything he’s failed me in, every unanswered prayer he watched me suffer in hope and expectancy only to be crushed in silence, all the pain he’d caused my family, and the list goes on. The grim reality that I facing wasn’t that God wasn’t real, it’s that He was real, but He wasn’t who He said He was.
I started playing some chords…and no words came out. Tears streaming, but no words.
Then, for a reason I’m still unclear about to this day, I started to sing the simple phrase, “Oh my soul rejoice, and know that the Lord is good.” My heart, still saddened, was starting to come alive again. The Holy Spirit met and ministered to me there in the moment. I wondered if if was a similar ministering Jesus experienced after fasting in the desert or during his prayer time before his betrayal. Something truly…beyond myself. I hung on this chorus for what seemed like hours that morning, singing it over me, singing it over my family as an intercessory prayer.
“Trust” is not a white knuckle, ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ song. It’s dependance. It’s a surrender of my need for answers underneath the “shadow of His wings”, under the truth of his actions and character. Jesus felt the same deep pain and anger at the death of his friend, Lazarus (see John 11) that I was experiencing for the loss of those babies. He was near to my broken heart (Ps. 34:18). A world with sin is not His design. There’s a final, beautiful end (or new beginning) to it all, but we aren’t at the end of the book yet. We’re still in the middle pages. The sometimes frustrating, confusing, and heart breaking middle pages.
My sister did end up having her first child (and a second). They are a couple of strong and hilarious boys. The world is blessed and changed forever because they are around. The Lord has “restored to her the years the locust have eaten”(Joel 2:25), but it wasn’t without struggle, pain, and continued healing.
I’ve never experienced hope outside of Jesus. I never will. That’s why even in the darkest times I fight and struggle to live in the land of His character. Not feeling it first, mind you…but at least showing up in that land. Looking around to see what it’s like, how high it’s mountains are, how wide its rushing rivers are. Eventually, you start to taste the air and feel the grass beneath your feet…and you’ll see and be with the Good Shepherd in those green pastures He’s inviting you into.
Fight for hope.
Fight for love.
Fight for trust.
He’s right in the middle with you.