Psalm 56: The Fearful, Part 1

The next several posts are drawn from a message I preached this spring on Psalm 56, considering how God meets people who are fearful. I want to make our way through this Psalm by asking four questions. Here is the first:

What's happening when I'm afraid?

Verse 3 begins with, "When I am afraid..." Before we consider the rest of the statement, I want to begin by thinking about that moment in our own experience: "When I am afraid..." Being afraid is a universal human experience. We all encounter fear.

And on one level, that's normal and good. Fear can be healthy when it protects us from something that can cause us harm. I want my 2-year-old daughter to be afraid of—and avoid the consequences of—putting her hand into a fire.

But fear isn't that simple or rational is it? We fear more than just obviously harmful actions. And we often fear what isn't dangerous or harmful. Fear becomes problematic when it is disproportionate to the actual danger. So if my daughter becomes terrified of a safe, contained fire in the fireplace, a healthy fear has become bigger than the actual circumstances call for.

So fear covers a broad spectrum—on one end it can be understandable even helpful, on the other extreme it can be unwarranted and detrimental.

This week I sat down with the pastoral team and we thought about the common fears of people that we counsel...

• We fear losing our health, we fear sickness
‚Ä¢ We fear we'll never find a spouse, or we fear losing our spouse—we fear that we'll be alone
• We fear something will happen to our children
• We fear that we'll make a life-shattering mistake: we'll take the wrong job, we'll marry the wrong person
• We fear failure
• We fear losing our house, or other financial loss
• We fear for our physical safety
• We fear losing our mind
•We fear that our kids will turn out bad, and everyone will know what lousy parents we were
• We fear terrorism
• We fear we won't have enough when we retire

Maybe you fear that in a sermon on fear your particular fear won't be mentioned in a list and you'll feel left out. If I didn't name your particular fear, just add it to the list.

Do you notice what our everyday fears have in common? We fear what we can't control. We want to be in control. We want to be assured of certain outcomes. But we live in a world that we can't control no matter how hard we try. We live in a world that is dangerous. We live in a fallen world where loss and sickness and pain are daily realities.

And there are no easy answers. The Bible doesn't say that people who love Jesus will be freed from the bad stuff of this world. People in my church and readers of this blog have been touched by every one of the fears I listed and more.

So the truth is that often we do have reason to be afraid. The author of Psalm 56 had reason to be afraid—in fact, more so than most of us. As he wrote this Psalm, forces beyond his control were shaping his life. He had become a national hero when he killed the giant, Goliath. He had become a favorite of King Saul and the best-friend of Prince Jonathan. He even married Saul's daughter. And to top it all off, the prophet Samuel had told him he would one day become King himself.

David had a lot to lose. And that's exactly what it felt like was happening at many points in his life. It is believed that the circumstances surrounding this Psalm were one of his lowest moments. King Saul had lost his mind and was intent on murdering David, so David had to flee. He left his new bride, his friends and family. He was so desperate to escape Saul that at one point he had to flee to the Philistine town of Gath. This was enemy territory. This was the hometown of Goliath whom he had killed. David had to pretend to be insane to avoid death.

You hear the sense of desperation in the opening verses:

Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
all day long an attacker oppresses me;
my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many attack me proudly. ...
All day long they injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk;
they watch my steps,
as they have waited for my life.
For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

Think about this—David experienced almost all of the things that we just worry about. He lost his job. His lost his wife. He lost his home. And as he was slandered and accused by the King, he lost his reputation. His safety, his very life was being threatened.

David knew fear. He belonged to God and yet just like us, he lived in a world in rebellion against God. He lived in a world of sin. Just like you and me, he had reason to be afraid. He was often afraid. What did he do?

To be continued...