Psalm 71: When You Fear Being Left Behind as the Years Go By

Core Theme: For when you’re feeling forgotten — set aside as time passes, with less strength than you used to have

(Related Theme: Strength & Courage)

Background

Psalm 71 does not name its author. It reads like the prayer of an older believer looking back over a long life with God and looking ahead with some anxiety. The psalmist says he has trusted the Lord “from my youth,” that he has been held up “from the womb,” and that now he is “old and grayheaded.” The weight of the psalm falls on one fear and one answer: the fear of being abandoned when strength fades, and the answer that the God who held him from the beginning will not let go now.

It is also a psalm that speaks well beyond old age. Anyone who has ever felt set aside, whether by a changing season of life, by weakening health, or by people who seem to have moved on, will find words here for what that feels like.

Psalm 71 (KJV)

1 In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me.

3 Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.

4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

5 For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.

6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.

7 I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge.

8 Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day.

9 Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.

10 For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together,

11 Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.

12 O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help.

13 Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.

14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

15 My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.

16 I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

17 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.

18 Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto thisgeneration, and thy power to every one that is to come.

19 Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee!

20 Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

21 Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.

22 I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.

23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed.

24 My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt.

The heart of it

At the center of Psalm 71 is a simple, honest prayer: “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.” It is the cry of someone who has been faithful for a long time and now wonders whether that history will count for anything when he can no longer do what he once did. Many people carry that same quiet fear at different stages of life. It is the fear of being set aside, of becoming less useful and then less seen.

What the psalm does with that fear is instructive. The psalmist does not argue himself out of it, and he does not pretend it is not there. He lays it before the Lord and then builds his answer on the long record of God’s care. God has held him since before he was born. God has taught him from his youth. God has been his rock through “great and sore troubles.” The same God who has done all of that is not about to change His mind because the psalmist’s hair has turned gray.

That is the comfort here for anyone who feels forgotten. The Lord’s attention was never earned by our strength, so it is not lost when our strength goes. Isaiah 46:4 says it plainly: “And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

Walking through it

Verses 1–3: “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.”

The psalm opens by choosing where to stand. Before the fears come out, the trust is already stated. The psalmist asks to be delivered, and he calls the Lord his “strong habitation” [dwelling place], a refuge he can run to again and again. Notice the word “continually.” He is not describing a place he visited once in an emergency. This is a home he returns to every day, and the Lord has never turned him away from it.

Verses 4–6: “Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.”

Verse 4 names real danger, and verses 5–6 answer it with history. The Lord has been his hope and trust “from my youth,” and he has been “holden up” [held up] since birth. He looks back over his whole life and sees one steady hand beneath it. That is a powerful way to face a present fear: remembering how often God has already carried us. Psalm 27:10 puts it just as tenderly: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.”

Verses 7–8: “I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge.”

To be “a wonder” can mean an object of astonishment, someone others look at with wide eyes, perhaps because of the hardship he has gone through. He may feel stared at and yet unknown. But the refuge is not the opinion of the many. It is the Lord, and so he asks that his mouth be filled with praise all day. When we feel watched but not understood, God sees us truly.

Verses 9–11: “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.”

This is the heart of the prayer. Verse 11 is the part that hurts most: people say, “God hath forsaken him.” Feeling forgotten is hard enough on its own, and it is harder still when others seem to agree that God has moved on. But notice who is speaking. It is his enemies who say this, not God. A feeling that we have been abandoned is one thing. A verdict that we have been is another, and Scripture never gives it. As Hebrews 13:5 says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” That promise is spoken to believers when they are weak, not only when they are strong.

Verses 12–13: “O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help.”

The prayer grows urgent: “be not far.” When God seems distant, the honest thing to do is to ask Him to come near. Verse 13 asks that his adversaries be “confounded” [put to shame] and covered with reproach, which is a plea that God would set things right, not a call to take revenge himself. The psalmist leaves the matter with the Lord.

Verses 14–16: “But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.”

Here is the turn, and it begins with “But.” In the middle of his weakness, the psalmist decides to hope and to praise. In verse 16 he says, “I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD.” He does not say he will go in his own strength, which he knows is fading. The courage he needs is not his own. It is the Lord’s, and that is exactly the kind of strength that does not run out. As Paul learned, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Verses 17–18: “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto [until now] have I declared thy wondrous works.”

Even in old age the psalmist has something left to give. He asks that God not forsake him “until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.” He does not feel his life is finished. He feels he still has something to pass on. Feeling forgotten often comes with the sense of having nothing left to offer, and this verse says the opposite: God’s people are meant to carry His story forward to the very end, and the weakest among us can do it. Psalm 92:14 says of the righteous, “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.”

Verses 19–21: “Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.”

First he praises God’s righteousness: “O God, who is like unto thee!” Then he says something remarkable. The same God who allowed the “sore troubles” will “quicken” [revive] him and bring him up again. He does not blame God for the hard years, and he does not doubt Him for them. He trusts that the One who permitted the troubles is the One who will lift him out of them, and who will “comfort me on every side.” For the believer, that hope runs all the way to the resurrection. As 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “…though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

Verses 22–24: “I will also praise thee with the psaltery [a stringed instrument], even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.”

The psalm ends in song, with harp and psaltery, lips that “greatly rejoice,” and a soul that “thou hast redeemed.” The word redeemed carries the whole weight of the ending. He sings because he belongs to God, bought and kept. And he will still be talking of God’s righteousness “all the day long.” The man who began by fearing he would be forsaken ends by being unable to stop singing.

Carrying this forward

If the Lord has already carried you through a season when you felt set aside, take what the psalmist did and look back. Verse 17 says, “hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.” Notice that he did not keep what God had done to himself. Tell it. Tell your children, your grandchildren, the younger believer sitting near you at church, anyone who is where you once were. God does not carry us through hard seasons only for our own sake. What He did for you is part of the story someone else needs to hear.

And if you are in the middle of it now, with your strength thinning, the years moving faster than you wanted, and the quiet voice suggesting that God has moved on, bring it to Him the way the psalmist did. Say it plainly: “forsake me not when my strength faileth.” Then hold on to what he held on to. The Lord has held you from the beginning, and He has not stopped. “I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD” is not a promise that you will feel strong. It is a promise that you do not need to be. Whatever your years and however faint your strength, the God who carried you in the beginning will carry you still.