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?
– Psalm 56:3–4
Those are two great verses, and they’re actually repeated later on in the same Psalm in Psalm 56:10–11. So get the context here. David is being pursued by his enemies and he’s afraid. He’s clearly afraid, from the very beginning. Verse one, “Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me all day long, an attacker oppresses me.” Verse two, “My enemies trample on me all day long. Many are attacking me proudly.” So he’s under attack and he’s afraid.
Psalm 56:3–4 teaches us to abide in God when we are afraid.
He says, “When I am afraid.” That’s how verse three starts. But then he says, “I put my trust in you.” Even just that verse. So what do you do when you’re afraid? Put your trust in God. This is what Psalm 56:3 is saying. And then listen to verse four, “In God whose Word I praise.” What a picture, praising the Word of God because it’s the rock to stand on. When attacks are coming at you in the world, you can stand on his Word. Praise God for his Word. Praise his Word, “in God whose Word I praise. In God I trust.” And then listen to what he says. He says, “I shall not be afraid.”
In verse three, he said, “When I’m afraid.” Now in verse four, he’s saying, “I shall not be afraid. Well, how do you go from being afraid to not being afraid? Especially when he says right after this in verse four, “What can flesh do to me?” And when I think about that question, I think, well, a lot. People can do a lot to you. People can, just like is happening here in Psalm 56. They can attack you. People can do all kinds of things to try to harm you in all kinds of different ways. Ultimately, people can kill you. Flesh can do a lot to you. There’s a lot of reason to be afraid in that sense.
But David says, “No. When I put my trust in you, God, and in your Word that I praise. In God I trust. I shall not be afraid.” So faith in God truly does remove fear in this world. And so I just want to encourage you to ask in your life right now, is there anything you are afraid of? Anything you’re fearing? Or just to add to that, to use language from Matthew 6 and Philippians 4, anything you’re worried or anxious about? Just think. And maybe even ask God, “God, open my eyes to any fears in me.”
As things come to your mind that you’re afraid of or worried about or anxious about, just say, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God whose Word I praise, in God I trust. And I will not be afraid.” God, I pray those verses over my life and each one of our lives as we’re hearing this Word from you in Psalm 56. God, I pray that you would remove fear from each of our lives, all fear.
Psalm 56:3–4 encourages us to trust in God’s faithfulness.
I think about 2 Timothy 1:7. You did not give us a spirit of fear. You say over and over again throughout your Word, “Fear not. I’m with you. I’m for you.” “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear,” Psalm 46:1–2. This is all over your Word, oh God. Help us to hear it and help us to trust in you.
Lord, we just lay our fears before you. Psalm 55, we laid our burdens before you. Psalm 56, we lay our fears before you. We pray that you would free us, remove fear from us through trust in you and trust in your Word. We praise you for your Word, oh God. And we trust in your faithfulness to it. And as a result we trust we have nothing to fear, for you’re with us, you’re for us, and you will prove yourself faithful to all your Word.
God, we praise you for freeing us from the fear even of death itself. Jesus, we praise you for conquering sin and the grave. We praise you for freedom from sin, from Satan, from death, and from any fear of anything in this world. All glory be to your name, Jesus, the one who saves us from fear. So help us to live in that today. Trust in you. Please remove fears from us and God help us to encourage others with this truth, to point others to freedom from fear in you.
Prayer for the Nubri People
God, we pray specifically for the Nubri people of Nepal. I think about those Himalayan mountains people who’ve never heard the name of Jesus, don’t know the good news about Jesus. I think about people I’ve met in those mountains. God, you love all of these Nubri, men, women, and children, and they live in a culture of fear and villages of fear. God, we pray that the good news of Jesus would spread to the Nubri people, that they might be reached with Your love that casts out fear forever. We pray that for the Nubri and we pray that You help us to live in this perfect love that casts out fear in our lives today. When we are afraid, we trust in You, in You, oh God, whose Word we praise, in You, we trust and will not be afraid. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
