Year 5, Day 201: Psalm 56

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Protection

• Protection: In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray that God might deliver us from evil – even the Evil One.  Sometimes we need God’s protection from the sin around us.  Sometimes we need protection from the sinful people around us.  Other times we need protection from the sin that lies within ourselves. In any case, Jesus’ point is clear.  We need protection from the Father to make it through each and every day.

Psalm 56 is clearly a psalm of protection.  But there is something that we should take note of before returning to this familiar theme for the psalms.  Notice that the first half of the psalm is actually confession.  

The psalmist begins by confessing fear.  He is afraid when people surround him.  He is afraid when people come to thwart him – or worse – to take his life!  He is afraid when the life that he knows is suddenly in jeopardy.  The psalmist needs to confess fear first.

However, then the psalmist takes us down to a deeper level in Psalm 56:3-4.  He has to confess what his fear really means.  He has to ask why he is even afraid.  After all, if we place our life in God’s hands, what reason do we have to fear?  No, the psalmist knows what we all should know.  Fear is the time in our life when we reach back into God’s hands and try to wrestle control of our life back from God.  We fear when we don’t really trust God as much as we should trust Him with our life.  We fear when our circumstances around us are so potent that we are no longer certain of God’s ability to save us.  That’s the heart and the root of fear.  The psalmist has to confess that.  The psalmist has to ask himself why it is that he is afraid.

One the psalmist puts that behind him, notice that he is now primed and ready to look forward onto the protection of God.  Once the psalmist can move past his fear and the root of his fear, he can once again focus on God’s ability to sustain his life.  God is truly a God of our protection.  He can and does save us.  He is worthy of placing our life in His hands.  He has kept us.  We should praise His name.

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