Big Buts of the Bible

“All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.

They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.

They swarmed around me like bees,
but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them down.

I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.”
—Psalm 118:10–13

Sometimes a song can transport you across decades and thousands of miles in about three notes.

Whenever I hear Chris Tomlin’s “Forever,” I’m taken back to a church in Windhoek, Namibia. I was worshiping there with believers whose language wasn’t mine. They were singing in Afrikaans, a language I didn’t know, but I knew the song. So while they sang the words in their mother tongue, I sang them in English.

Different languages. Same song. Same God. Same truth. Same hope.

For a few minutes, on the other side of the world, brothers and sisters in Jesus were worshiping with one voice through different tongues. I’ll never forget it.

And I know the Scripture behind that familiar refrain: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

That’s how Psalm 118 begins. And remarkably, it’s also how Psalm 118 ends. Everything in between is surrounded by that truth.

Surrounded

Psalm 118 is a joyous song of thanksgiving and victory, associated with Israel’s worship and celebration. But the joy isn’t coming from somebody who has never known trouble. Quite the opposite.

Listen to the language:

“All the nations surrounded me…”

“They surrounded me on every side…”

“They swarmed around me like bees…”

“I was pushed back and about to fall…”

That’s not somebody having a particularly pleasant week. The psalmist feels surrounded, overwhelmed, outnumbered and nearly knocked down. Three times he describes enemies closing around him, and finally he admits just how precarious things had become: I was about to fall.

Maybe that’s why the buts in this passage are so powerful.

The trouble is real. But.

The enemies are real. But.

The pressure is real. But.

The possibility of falling is real. “But the LORD helped me.”

There is hope hidden right there in plain sight.

When Surrounded Becomes a Feeling

Most of us aren’t likely to find ourselves literally surrounded by enemy nations. But we know something about feeling surrounded.

Sometimes it’s one problem coming from every direction. A financial worry collides with a health concern. Trouble at work follows tension at home. Someone you love is struggling and you can’t fix it. The news is unsettling. Sleep doesn’t come easily. Prayer feels difficult.

One problem might seem manageable. But then another arrives. And another.

Until somehow surrounded becomes less a description of our circumstances and more a description of how we feel.

Psalm 118 doesn’t tell us that people who trust God never reach that place. The writer himself says, “I was pushed back and about to fall.”

Faith doesn’t require pretending we’re stronger than we are. Sometimes faith sounds remarkably like: I was about to fall, but the LORD helped me.

Trust Over Fear

Just before those repeated buts, the psalmist tells us something he has learned:

“The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

And then: “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in humans. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.”

That doesn’t mean people can’t help us. Often God’s help comes precisely through other people. It means human strength isn’t where our ultimate security rests.

Governments change. Leaders disappoint. Resources disappear. People we counted on sometimes can’t do what we need them to do. Our own strength eventually runs out too.

But the LORD helped me.

There’s something beautifully simple about that sentence. No elaborate explanation. No theological footnotes. No insistence that the psalmist understood everything God was doing.

He needed help. God helped.

The Stone Nobody Wanted

And then Psalm 118 gives us another picture of hope.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Something dismissed becomes essential. Something rejected becomes foundational. Something apparently discarded becomes the very stone upon which everything else depends.

Centuries later, Jesus and the New Testament writers would return to these words and apply them to Him: Jesus—the rejected stone who became the cornerstone.

The religious leaders rejected Him. He was betrayed, condemned and crucified. His body was placed in a tomb. It certainly looked like the story had reached its end.

But.

God has always been rather good at writing something unexpected after that word. The rejected stone became the cornerstone. Death didn’t get the final sentence. The tomb didn’t get the final word.

And perhaps that’s why Psalm 118 can begin and end exactly where it does: “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Forever

That’s what I remember when that song takes me back to Namibia. Different country. Different language. Different people and stories and circumstances. But all of us singing about the same enduring love of God.

And that’s the truth surrounding everything else in Psalm 118. The psalmist was surrounded by enemies. But he was also surrounded by the faithfulness of God.

The psalm begins with enduring love and ends with enduring love. Everything frightening happens in between. Maybe that’s worth remembering when life feels like it’s closing in.

You may be surrounded by circumstances you didn’t choose. You may be pushed farther back than you thought you could go. You may even feel, as the psalmist did, that you’re about to fall. You don’t have to pretend otherwise. Just remember where the next word can go.

But the LORD helped me.

And remember the rejected stone. Remember the empty tomb. Remember the love that was there before the trouble began and will still be there when the trouble has passed.

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His love endures forever.