I was praying this psalm about six months ago when these lines jumped out at me as they never had before. What an astonishing proclamation of faith. Even in the face of war, the psalmist would continue to trust in the Lord. I could only ask myself, “Am I up to this?”

At the time, I read this verse personally as though I might come under attack from a vicious individual or group. I know I am a wimp in the face of strong opposition. How would I fare standing by myself, with no one to support me except the unseen God? Not well, I suspect. Martyrdom has never held an attraction for me. If push came to shove, I might back down.

In the last several weeks, this verse has taken on new meaning, not just for me but for all of Canada. We now face a bully to the south who threatens us, first, economically and even more with annexation. The question now turns to the nation of Canada: in the event of hardship, an assault on our sovereignty and possibly even war, would we trust in God?

I have read and listened to a lot in the media and have not seen this question raised. Canada is an increasingly secular nation, and religion is cast as a private matter, never to enter the public square. So, our potential responses to President Trump’s tariffs have been cast in secular terms: retaliation with our own tariffs, a Buy Canada campaign, a search for new trading partners and an infrastructure program that would bolster our self-sufficiency.

All this is important. Depending on your perspective, Canada has either been too blasé or too trusting. We like to be friends with everybody. We never seriously considered that our best global friend, the United States of America, would turn against us. We would be nice, and they would be nice too. 

Now the climate has changed. We risk being geographically isolated and our prosperity eroded. Of course, we should pray for Canada to be spared from any evils that face us. However, we must do more. The psalmist says to trust in the Lord. That may strike us as a lame response, a call for us to take no action and hope God will work a miracle.

In fact, our lives are based on trust. We trust motorists will not totally ignore red lights, that supermarkets will have ample food supplies when we go shopping and that our currency will retain its value. We trust the electrical system, the sewer system and even the weather. If all those systems collapsed, betraying our trust, we might find ourselves eating bark off the trees to stay alive.

If we trust in Loblaws and the Bank of Canada, why should we not trust in God? Okay, there is no regulatory body to oversee God’s actions. Given the way our institutions work and don’t work, that’s a good thing. Grace is more dependable than emailing the Department of Emergency Affairs and waiting for a positive response.

Do we believe that? The old saying is that grace builds on nature. Another is that God helps those who help themselves. If you want God’s assistance, you should dig in and give God a helping hand. Pray like everything depends on God, and act as though there is no God. Too often, we lean hard to one side or the other.

The founders of Canada took the country’s motto from Psalm 72: “He shall rule from sea to sea, from the river to the bounds of the earth.” Perhaps most Canadians don’t know where the “sea to sea to sea” business originated. The “he” in this line is not John A. MacDonald but God the Creator. It is not a verse that encourages imperialism. It is another pledge of faith in God’s loving care.

Over the past 158 years, the temper of Canada has changed. Although many of our leading citizens are religious believers, we have been caught in a trap where diversity and pluralism mean bowing to the lowest common denominator in the population. We can do better than that. In this time of crisis, we need to re-learn that when war breaks out against us, there is only One in whom we can trust.