Psalm 56 is one of the most beautiful Psalms in all the Bible. It is so rich, deep and powerful that one simple blog post cannot even remotely begin to show the richness of it. If you struggle with fear, I would invite you to pour over this Psalm, reading it time and time again. Then I would invite you to come back to this blog and find a few words of direction, comfort and hope.
David begins this Psalm by giving us a clue about what was happening in his life. If you read the opening instructions of the Psalm, before verse 1, you will find the following words:
To the choirmaster: according to the Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.
These words give us some indication of what was happening in the life of David which produced so much fear in him. It’s interesting to go back to 1 Samuel 21 and read the entire chapter. What you’ll discover is that David and his men are on the run, fearful because Saul is out for his blood. He comes to a specific town, Nob (v.1) and is invited to take some bread from the Table of Presence to help with their hunger. But in verse 8-9 we learn that David asks for a sword and Ahimelech gives him the only sword he has…which happens to be the same sword that David used to chop the head off of Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. And then, David makes a peculiar move…he takes off for Gath.
On the surface, that seems a little insignificant. Until we realize that Gath is the hometown of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4) and David, being so afraid of Saul, goes into the hometown of the man he destroyed…carrying the very sword that he used to cut off that man’s head. Fear had driven David to do some crazy things. As you read through the rest of the chapter (1 Samuel 21), you discover that David became so fearful (or perhaps, he was very wise) that he acted like a patient who had just escaped an insane asylum. He scratched at the walls, had drool in his beard, pretended to be crazy….and apparently it worked.
Now fast-forward to Psalm 56. David was seized in Gath. Fearful. Afraid. Enemies pursuing him from every possible direction. So what is he to do with his very real fear?
Let’s check it out together. Verse 3-4.
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise. In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?”
Go back…reread those verses. He is a afraid at the beginning of verse 3, and then something happens. He puts his trust in God, in God whose word he praises….and then, he isn’t afraid anymore. In fact, he’s so unafraid that he says, “What can flesh (i.e. people) do to me?” That’s a little ironic, considering he spends verse one and two telling us how much mankind can do to him.
So what happened? It’s both simple and complex. The simple answer is that he put his faith in God. It wasn’t an abstract God he was placing his faith in, it was the God who David knew he could trust. It was the God who David knew he could follow. And it was the word of this God that David is said to have praised.
3 times in this short psalm David describes God as “The God whose word I praise.” The significance of this is huge! Connect the dots between the movement of David’s fear to faith? There is an obvious connection between the worship of God and the word of God. David moved from fear to faith by trusting in God…a God he knew in part because of the word this God had given him.
David gives us several clues about his relationship with God’s Word throughout the psalms. In one psalm in particular (Psalm 19) he writes, “The laws of the Lord are true and fair, they are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb.” In other words, David wasn’t willing to trade God’s Word for all the money in the world or for all the food in the world. If given the choice of having God’s word or being dirt poor and hungry, he was taking God’s Word. He wasn’t willing to trade God’s Word for anything.
And his word in Psalm 56 plays an integral role in removing the fear that he has. Which then begs the question…why are we so afraid? Could it be that we don’t have the same relationship with God’s Word that David did? Satan likely isn’t tempting you between knowing God’s Word and having all the riches in the world. Instead, he’s tempting you in a much cheaper way. If we’re being honest with ourselves, many of us don’t have a consistent time in God’s Word. Yet we have lots of excuses, mostly centered around “I didn’t have time today…” In reality, David wouldn’t trade his time in the Word for anything, and yet we’re willing to trade it for an old rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond or a basketball game that we don’t even really care about. We trade our time with God’s Word for time on Facebook, watching the drama of other people’s lives unfold.
And we wonder why fear grips our heart and won’t let go. Because we won’t take the medicine the Great Physician gave us, which is the Word of God itself. How is your time with Jesus? Are you consistently in the Word? Would you trade it for all the riches in the world? How about for more time on Facebook?
Don’t let Satan rob your joy by filling you with fear. Turn to God–trust in God–study His Word–conquer your fears.
AP.S. If you don’t have a consistent quiet time, here’s a link to a great blog site which has complied several reading plans for you already. My personal time in the Word this year is spent in the book of Proverbs. Each day I read the chapter of proverbs which corresponds with that actually day (January 1st, read Proverbs 1; January 2, read Proverbs 2, etc…). At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which plan you follow or even how much you read (think quality over quantity), what matters is that you fall in love with the Word by giving your self a consistent, steady diet of it. You’ll discover that with God’s Word you can do so much more than conquering even your biggest fear. Happy reading!