Oh my strength, I will watch for you. For you oh God are my fortress. My God in his steadfast love will meet me. God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.
– Psalm 59:9–10
So that last phrase is really important to the context of this Psalm. This is David writing this while Saul is coming after him and all of Saul’s army, the first verse of Psalm 59 says, “Deliver me from my enemies. Oh my God, protect me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from those who are working evil,” and he goes on to describe them as lying in wait for his life and coming after him. And you get to verse nine and David’s gaze is on God, not on those who are attacking him.
He looks to God and he says, “Oh my strength.” And at least in the ESV translation, the S in strength is capitalized. This is David saying, “You are my Strength. That’s who you are. And I will watch for you, for you oh God are my Fortress. My Strength, my Fortress,” and then he says, “My God, in his steadfast love, his faithful, loyal love and mercy toward me, my God will meet me.” What a great perspective when we are facing any kind of trial in this world.
Psalm 59:9–10 teaches us that God is our strength.
It could be people coming at you, attacking you. That’s obviously the context here in Psalm 59. But even just think spiritual warfare. Think of the reality that there is an adversary who is always attacking you. There is an adversary who is always accusing you. We are constantly engaged in spiritual battle from the moment we rise to the moment we lay our head on our pillow at night and even after that.
So lift your eyes to the one who is your strength with a capital S. Watch for him. Don’t focus on those who are attacking you or the adversary who is coming after you. Focus on the God who is your fortress amidst the attacks of the enemy. And trust that God, your God, in his steadfast love for you will meet you. What a phrase. Not just be with you. He’ll meet you at the point where you need him most.
You can trust he will be there for you and he will help you through. Oh God, I pray this over every one of our lives. Knowing there is an adversary right now who wants to attack our lives, our relationship with you, our hearts, our minds, that there is an adversary in this world who wants to attack our relationships with others, the people we are close to. Wants to attack our families, our friends, the churches that we are part of.
Psalm 59:9–10 we can trust in when we meet adversity.
There’s an adversary who doesn’t want people around us who don’t know you, Jesus, to come to know you. And so we lift our eyes right now to you amidst all kinds of battles, struggles, challenges we’re facing, and we say to you, “You are our strength and we watch for you.” God, we are weak. You are strong. We praise you as our Strength and we praise you as our Fortress, as our Protector and Provider, our Defender.
God, we are so thankful that you are our defender and we trust that you, our God, will meet us in your steadfast love for us all day today and all day tomorrow and the next day no matter what we face. In this world, God, we praise you for meeting us with your steadfast love. Jesus, we praise you for making all of this possible through your steadfast love for us on a cross.
And so God, we pray that you would help us to engage not just in spiritual warfare and battle in our own hearts and lives today, but for the sake of others hearts and lives. God, help us to be bold with the gospel today and bold with the gospel in the world.
Prayer for the Yakthumba Limbu People
Lord, we pray for the Yakthumba Limbu people of Nepal, hundreds of thousands of them, half a million or so of them who are in spiritual darkness, who’ve not been reached with spiritual light in the gospel. God, we pray, we plead, we intercede right now in spiritual battle for the Yakthumba Limbu people of Nepal.
Please, oh God, hear from heaven and cause the gospel to spread to them. Whatever is needed in your church, raise up laborers, resources. We pray, oh God, for spiritual victory for this unreached people group to be reached with the good news of your love. In Jesus we ask this. You are strong enough to do this. You love this people group. We pray to you our strength, our fortress, our God who steadfast love we trust. In our lives and for their sake, we pray all this in Jesus name according to your Word in Psalm 59:9–10. 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.
