“In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?” – Psalm 56:4
…and the fruit of trust? The elimination of fear.
“In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” – Psalm 56:11
I guess the reason this section stands out to me is because of the glaring areas in my life that I still fear. While I still worship, I wonder today how much this fear inhibits a complete abandonment in my expression of thanks. I wonder where else fear is holding me back.
Father, your Word says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear”. Help me to let go of pride and selfishness and teach me to trust you in all areas of my life, that I might not get in the way of your work. Amen.
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Psalm 56 - Worry
ReplyDeleteV4 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?
V11 in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
David is living among his mortal enemies, clearly afraid. He describes the reasons for his feelings and twice comforts himself by saying, “If I trust God, I need not be afraid.” Fear is part of our human experience. But worry is different. Worry, is fear left untreated by faith. Worry is concern for things that we cannot control.
The Word is clear in it’s teaching that we should not worry – if we trust in God. In fact there are 12 references in the Bible to worry – 11 of them spoken by Jesus and they all say do not worry. For example Jesus says in Matthew 6:25-27 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
When the Bible says, “Do not steal”, do we say, well that applies to me and I should not steal – or do we say – well I know its important but I come from a stealy sort of family – when we are under stress that’s what we do – we steal.
When the Bible says “Do not murder” – do weu accept that as God’s command or do we say – well – yes you should not murder but family background is that when under stress be do murder a bit – I mean it’s just our family’s way of coping with stress.
You get my point; even if I carried it a bit far to make it. We are told not to worry in the Word; yet we still find ways to justify our worry. We are told that trust in the Lord will erase worry. It will not erase fear, but it will erase worry. Worry will rob of us of our health and joy, which is not what God wants for us. How do we erase worry? By treating it with liberal doses of faith. How do we treat it with faith? Well David gave us that answer, “In God I trust”. How do we trust God? We tell Him, through prayer. Fear is a natural element of life; worry is not. With God, we need not worry.
Trusting God is hard when it comes to hard times. It is easy to trust Him to say allow me to breath. It is another thing to say God I trust you to heal my sick child or provide a job for me. I struggle with trusting God to keep me level headed and fight for me. It is a calming feeling to trust Him. I should do more of it.
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