In God I Trust Psalm 56 (day 12)

For this lent season, I am doing a forty-day study in the Psalms looking for aspects of the atonement that will end around Easter. My hope is to generate a newfound awe of what Christ did on the cross.

Psalm 56:3-4

[3] When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. [4] In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

Psalm 56:10-11

[10] In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, [11] in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

I know that I have already written about fear in a previous Psalm but God is redundant about where we put our trust when we are afraid. Back when they wrote the Bible they didn't have bold, underline, italics or even use all capital letters when they wanted to get a point across. What they had was what they call the “rule most mentioned” in other words, what God talks about the most is what we need to pay attention to the most. And we see in the Psalms, I believe the most talked about, is where do we go in our heart when we are afraid? The psalmist here in chapter 56 asks the question, “What can flesh do to me”? And “what can man do to me”?

This is David saying this and he had every reason to believe man can hurt him. So why does David say what can man do to me? They most assuredly could kill him or could hurt him. Man does have the ability to strike and hurt each other. So what does it mean to not be afraid of what man can do to you? I believe David understood God's sovereignty, David understood how to walk vertical especially when evil men are seeking him out. I believe David believed that no matter what happened to him God was going to make it good. God does not create evil but he works His good in the middle of evil.

In the story of Joseph, his brothers threw him in the well and left him for dead and they thought they could make money off him and sold him into slavery in Egypt. This is doubly bad as they knew he would die as a slave but they made money off that. Then Joseph was falsely accused of making a pass on Potiphar’s wife and was sent to prison for 14 years; many men betrayed him. Joseph always worshiped God in the middle of evil being done to him because he always believed God was in control. When he saw his brothers after many years he forgave them but he did say, “you guys sold me into Egypt, but God sent me”. You see, what was meant for evil God made good. That's what is central to the cross; what man meant for evil God made good. So when David says what can man do? Jesus basically says the same thing on the cross what can man do? Jesus’ trust was in God not in man. Even when man is doing evil to you, you can trust God for His good for you. Man is not in control of your destiny!