The Foundation Is Firm

Four years ago my wife Stacey and I decided "How Firm a Foundation" would be our family hymn. We have learned it together and I have sung it hundreds of times on the way to work during these wonderful (and sometime not so wonderful) seminary years. It always brings me back to the great old truths of the faith, rooted in Isaiah 41:10 and 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said,

To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;

In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;

At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,

As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,

For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand

Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;

For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove

My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;

And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,

Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.