Flight or Fight

“O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me” (Psalm 3:1, ESV). When David wrote this opening verse, he was either experiencing many people attacking him on a single front or being attacked on many fronts. 

Sometimes, we encounter one trial after another, or they pile up all at once. In the midst of our suffering, we can be driven to near despair. Some of us may grow paranoid, our thoughts running wild about worst-case scenarios. We grow panicked over what may happen to us.

Often, we are assured we can reasonably face one problem, but an avalanche of problems that are beyond our abilities troubles the soul. We spend every waking hour preoccupied with our difficulty, unable to shake our anxiety and fear. Despite our best intentions, like David, we turn to flight instead of fight. 

We have to accept that even in life’s toughest trials, the greater battle is always with principalities and powers that attack our mind and soul. These are our most vulnerable areas during times of great struggle.

In Psalm 3, David begins the prayer of a beleaguered king who despaired over the mounting odds stacked against him. By verse 3, things begin to change. David had another prayer in his heart, a prayer of awesome hope. “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head” (Psalm 3:3). 

David had moved from being overwhelmed by “many” things to a single-minded focus on one thing: his source of deliverance. He was no longer worried about being surrounded by many trials but instead was lifted by the help he knew he had in God. David saw his shield, the Lord himself, surrounding him. 

Psalm 3 tells us that it doesn’t matter how encircled we may be by oncoming trials. No matter what direction the assaults come from, the Lord has us covered. This is true not just in some circumstances but in all of them. God has control over all our concerns and worries. He is a shield that covers every inch of our being, leaving no opening for the enemy’s piercing arrows. Today, let God’s very presence be your greatest shield in whatever trial you may face. 

^{This devotional has been adapted from Gary Wilkerson’s book, The Altar of Our Hearts: An Expository Devotional on the Psalms.}