Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “I’ll praise the Lord for ever and ever” by Paul Wigmore. It’s based on parts of Psalm 34 (specifically, verses 1, 4, 8 and 22 of the psalm for the four verses of the hymn, and v.3 for the chorus). The psalm as a whole is one of the more positive ones (in the New Revised Standard Version it’s captioned ‘Praise for deliverance from trouble’), and these selected verses are the most affirming of all. “I will praise the Lord for ever and ever, my soul shall boast of his wonderful name”, and the other verses say how he answers prayer, delivers us from fear, offers secure refuge and redeems but never condemns those who trust in him.
All this makes it a good sing (whether using the tune provided, or the one that John wrote). But the Psalms are still much-used precisely because they contain such a wide range of emotions, representing the reality of life that even those who do have faith in God can still suffer some awful experiences that test that very faith. Perhaps the composer of this hymn should have included some of the verses of PS.34 that acknowledge this (“this poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord … keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit … many are the afflictions of the righteous”).