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Daily Devotion: Psalm 56:3-4

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Psalm 56:3-4    "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.  (4)  In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me."

There are many phobias of which people suffer. I personally am afraid of heights and snakes among other things. What a combination! Right?  What do you fear? I have heard people say they are not afraid of anything. The folks from Grace Church know my answer to that, but I will say it again: I don't believe them.  That sounds judgmental, but that's how I feel.  The right giant has not come along in their lives at this point, but when it comes along fear will accompany it.

I do not associate fear with King David; yet, I'm sure there were many things that troubled him. Back in Psalm 42, he spoke of being disquieted within his soul. In other places, he called upon the Lord to help him go against his enemies. In today's Psalm, he did not say "IF I am afraid."  He said, "WHAT TIME I AM AFRAID."  We all have our fears and we know the Word of God teaches us that "God has not given us the spirit of fear." (2 Timothy 1:7)  It is a part of our humanity that we inherited through our sin nature.  It is a fact of life and today's thoughts speak to the manner in which we deal with fear.

There are things that take us by surprise and we often react to them. Reactions to events can bring results that we later regret. I have been so guilty at times of having knee jerk reactions by saying or doing things that I later regret. It is important that we come to terms with this thing called fear so we can respond rather than react. Responses require being prepared. We often see Rapid Response Teams practicing for cases of emergency needs. It is so important to have responses as a second nature when under stressful situations.

David was prepared to respond when fear would take hold of him. His plan was a perfect plan of response. "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." He was training his mind and heart to respond to whatever caused fear to rise up. How do we practice this plan of response? It seems to me that the best way to be prepared for those larger things is to practice trusting the Lord in smaller things. A simple request of "Lord, please help me" is a good beginning. One very good way to be prepared is to study God's Word to see how the saints of old trusted and were encouraged in the Lord. When we read the Word of God, let us go beyond the events that took place to see the hand of God upon those individuals. David would surely say to us, "When you read about the battle against Goliath, concentrate on the fact that the Lord God Almighty directed that stone to the forehead." He would tell us to focus on the source of our help and strength. "IN GOD I will praise His Word."

Leaning on the everlasting arms of the Almighty God is the proper response to situations that are out of our control. Trust Him!

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