The theme of Psalm 56 is stated in verse 3. “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.” Interestingly, the superscription tells us that this Psalm was written when the Philistines captured David in Gath. Gath was the hometown of Goliath, the Philistine champion that David killed as a young man in 1 Samuel 17. In this place that stood for God’s victorious deliverance, David was paralyzed by fear. The most often repeated command in the Bible is “fear not.” It is repeated 144 times. The first reference to fear in the Bible was right after Adam and Eve sinned. They hid themselves when they heard the voice of God. Adam told God that he was afraid, and the Holy Spirit used that fear in Adam and Eve in the same way that He uses that fear in sinners today. I deserve the judgment of God and that makes me afraid. It thrusts us to the mercy of the cross. Interestingly, the Bible never says that there is nothing for us to be afraid of. Isaiah 41:10 says, “Fear not, for I am with you.” Fear stops us dead in our spiritual tracks so that we do not move forward for God. We will take a few devotionals to see what this Psalm says about fighting our fears.
Psalm 56 identifies the fears. There are times when we feel an overwhelming sense of fear, but we struggle to identify what we are afraid of. What are your great fears? Growing old alone, dying, something bad happening to my children, life shattering decisions that can never be undone, public failure, financial disaster, losing my family, illness, cancer, being wrong about big things, people judging me, lack of independence, the future, relationships, wasting life, failing my children- these are just a handful among the countless things that terrify us.
In verse 1, David assents that these things feel at times like they are swallowing me up. These are not single, isolated incidents, but one on top of another, like waves. Oppress has the idea of squeezing us, sapping us of life and energy for the things that matter. In the midst of his trouble, verse 5 says that people are twisting his words. Verse 6 says that they are marking his steps. They are just waiting for him to mess up. Their thoughts are against me. David is referring to people who assume the worst about me.
These are things that are out of our control, and things that are out of our control are the stuff of nightmares. When I recognize that I am outside of my own ability to control things, I am afraid. That takes us back to verse 3. “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.”
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