Psalm 56:1-2 Be merciful to me, my God,
for my enemies are in hot pursuit;
all day long they press their attack.
2 My adversaries pursue me all day long;
in their pride many are attacking me.
Sometimes it can feel as if everything that could go wrong is going wrong. You know the feeling. One thing right after another, again and again. Just when you dare to think about taking another breath, another wave of wrong heads your direction and under you go.
For most people, this isn’t their life. For most of us, we get times of reprieve, times to take a breath, sit back and relax. It can be wonderful when things aren’t crashing down around our ears.
But for many in our world, their lives are just continual struggle and hardship. Christians are being displaced and oppressed in record numbers. Islam is becoming more radical in their pursuit of purity of practice and belief. Nothing is new under the sun.
The author of our Psalm found himself in hiding from his enemies. They are pushing their pursuit, hemming him in on every side. It sounds relentless, tiring. How do you find space to go on living in such a situation?
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” That is how he makes it through those moments. He recognizes that this life is short, but there is more to life than this life. Mere mortals only have so much say in what happens. Only the LORD has control of things in our lives.
When mere mortals attack, there is someone who is able to protect and deliver, able but not always compliant with our desires. He has greater plans. He can keep us through the most difficult seasons of our lives. He might not take us out of those seasons. He might not stop the enemy attacks. But he will see us through them.
This Psalm ends by telling the end of the story. The LORD delivered from death and from stumbling. The writer was able to survive the pressures of the attacks. They did not crush his spirit. He came out the other side still connected to his Lord and Savior.
When we face these types of pressures, how will we react? We will probably do in the greatest pressings what we have done in the small ones. So how are you reacting to the current small pressures? Are you trusting him to sustain? Or are you ‘going it alone?’
The Arnold Journey 