“I trust in God; I won’t be afraid”

Read: Psalm 56:3-4, 10-11

Reflect: In 1933 a deep economic depression gripped the United States. In his inaugural address, new President Franklin Roosevelt said, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”1 President Roosevelt was, knowingly or not, following a Biblical tradition. Psalm 56’s expression of deep trust in God was repeated in Psalm 118, sung at the end of Passover seders, and quoted in Hebrews 13:5-8. Trusting in God’s unfailing love, the psalmist, Jesus and the early Christians all asked, “What can anyone do to me?”

• Scholar J. Clinton McCann wrote, “The refrain [“What can anyone do to me?”] means that the concept of trust runs throughout the psalm, communicating the reality that trust is everywhere in the life of the psalmist.”2 In what ways can you plant trust everywhere in your faith life?
How does the psalmist’s question speak to any fears you are carrying in your heart?

• When we read the question, “What can anyone do to me?” our first (frightening) thought may be, “People could do plenty to me.” Only as we look below life’s surface does the psalmist’s question make more sense. What bad, perhaps even malicious, obstacles has God’s presence helped you survive, or even turned to a good purpose? How does that affect your ability to trust God moving forward?

Pray: Lord God, I want to learn to live with the same kind of trust the psalmist expressed. Teach me each day how to put my trust in you whenever I am afraid. Amen.

1 Speech transcript and sound clip found at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057.
2 J. Clinton McCann, study note on Psalm 56:11 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 901 OT.