Psalm 56 – All Day – In God
By Bunni Pounds
*This blog is part of our weekly, virtual Bible Study through the book of Psalms. For information on how to participate, please visit this page.
Have you been in a situation where your enemies are hounding you ALL day long? When you feel like you never get a break from their pursuit – how does that wear you out?
Whether these are physical enemies like people on your job, neighbors who don’t like you, opponents on a campaign, people on social media who constantly attack your beliefs, whatever that looks like for you in this moment – it can feel constant.
Enemies can also be in our souls – addictions that won’t fall off, feelings of rejection and loneliness that won’t go away, and the world that makes us feel like it will swallow us up and spit us out. It can be an ALL day every day feeling.
This is how David felt in Psalm 56 and he voiced it. Strongly.
“Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up; Fighting all day he oppresses me.
My enemies would hound me all day,
For there are many who fight against me, O Most High.” (verse 1-2)
David goes back and forth in this Psalm between acknowledging the reality of the pain and the faithfulness of God.
“Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me?” (verse 3-4)
He realized extremely fast that the only way to thrive against the constant ALL DAY onslaught of the enemy was to be IN GOD.
Whenever he was afraid. Whenever he was full of fear. In God. That is where he stayed. In His Word and putting his trust in Him.
In that place of abiding was when the revelation hit him. The truth hit him - “what can flesh do to me?”
Jesus said in John 15:7 – “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
It is in the abiding that strength comes, and faith comes to our hearts – to really know that we can overcome anything against us.
When the attacks are happening ALL DAY– the abiding has to be constant. It is the only way to overcome.
“All day they twist my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil.
They gather together,
They hide, they mark my steps,
When they lie in wait for my life.” (verses 5-6)
Anyone who has run for office or run campaigns understands the power of twisted words. You can cut out a portion of a thought given and technically not be lying even though it changes the perception of the words. Those same words are then received another way. It is done all the time. It is twisted words.
It is painful when you feel like your words are being twisted and you can’t spend your efforts clarifying them.
David felt this pain – but he also felt the closeness of God.
“You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?” (verse 8)
The beautiful and clear picture of God caring about us enough to collect our tears into a bottle means so much to me personally. He treasures us so deeply that he holds our tears. He knows all of our thoughts and our feelings and our tears.
He sees our journey as fragile. He sees the pain we go through. He knows it all and he puts our tears in His bottle and records the pain in His book of remembrance.
Romans 8:31 – “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Nothing compares to God being for us. Nothing.
David had momentary forgetfulness on this point in I Samuel 21 – when he entered the home of the Philistines – Gath. He was so afraid of the King that he faked that he was insane. To protect himself against being captured – he banged his head against a wall and let his saliva run down all over this face. This was some serious fear he was operating in.
“When I cry out to You,
Then my enemies will turn back;
This I know, because God is for me.
In God (I will praise His word),
In the Lord (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
Vows made to You are binding upon me, O God;
I will render praises to You,
For You have delivered my soul from death.
Have You not kept my feet from falling,
That I may walk before God
In the light of the living?” (verses 9-13)
David goes back, after his fear, to the place of stability – IN GOD. In God he will put his trust. In the Lord will praise come out of his heart.
Praises start springing out of his soul because he knows that God has delivered him from death. There is no other explanation on how he has been delivered time and time again – BUT GOD.
God has kept “his feet from falling” for a purpose, so that he can walk with God.
The love that God feels toward us - that is demonstrated in the fact that He keeps all of our tears in a bottle - is the same love and passion that He has for us to walk with Him and know Him. He loves every detail about us, and He has redeemed us not just to save us and get us to heaven, but to know us and walk with us every day. He wants to be with us ALL DAY.
He laid down His life for us….
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:13
He laid down His life for you and me. He chose us to know Him.
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” John 15:16
The enemy is coming and attacking us all day to do anything he can to separate us from that love – but as we abide in God’s Word – we flourish.
He will keep our feet from falling – so that we can walk with Him every day ALL DAY.
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