Ps 30:1–3 (NET)  I will praise you, O Lord, for you lifted me up, and did not allow my enemies to gloat over me. 30:2 O Lord my God, I cried out to you and you healed me. 30:3 O Lord, you pulled me up from Sheol; you rescued me from among those descending into the grave.

If this Psalm is as its title purports – then it is David speaking from the grave. He penned it before Solomon built the Temple. And now it is being used at the dedication of the Temple. He prepared it ahead of time that it might be used on that occasion. We might well read it as David’s dying testimony.

In 1-3 he recalls God’s great goodness and deliverance in times of need. And hasn’t He delivered me and you from the sins which raged so fiercely against us? Indeed they still rage – but He is faithful, and the blood of the cross of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

In 4-5 David calls other Believers to give thanks to God for His faithful love. Even when He is angry with us, His good favor always restores us. He never abandons us.

Vss. 6-10 find David recalling how he foolishly trusted in his own strength, in his own faith at times, and then realizing security rests only in his God. How God withdraws at times to remind us it is so, but always hears us when we cry out because of it.

And 11-12 speak of how God in His mercy, grace and faithfulness ultimately turns our darkest hours into dancing, and our grief into joy. And so David wants his final testimony to be thanks to the Lord. For when all is seen in the light of His glory – this is the wondrous end of the saint in the hands of his or her faithful God.

I wonder what I will leave behind to give praise to Christ when I am gone from this life? Maybe it too will be a Psalm of praise and adoration and a testimony to God’s glorious faithfulness to such a wicked sinner as I am. For surely it is true.