Do You Have A Lot Of Enemies? Psalm 3...

Save Me, O My God

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

 3 O Lord, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
4 I cried aloud to the Lord,
    and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

I like writing about the Psalms because I literally live in them! A long time ago, some very wise person told me to get in the habit of reading 5 Psalms every day and when I tried it I got addicted. Now I can't live without them. Turns out there is a Psalm for every situation life can throw at us. I am not going to write about every single Psalm, but I am going to ponder a few of my favorites because maybe they can help you too.

Psalm 3 is about having a lot of enemies and it was written by David when his own son was against him! Sometimes our family members betray us or try to get rid of us. Absalom was trying to kill David! Sometimes it is our best friend who betrays us by gossiping about us or slandering us. Sometimes our enemies are people we don't even know. 

Our enemies may not put us in physical danger, but we face a battle every morning! The number of people who are our enemies doesn't matter--it only takes one person to make our lives miserable. Do you see the word "selah" at the end of verse 4? That means stop and think about this for a minute. What are we supposed to think about? Just this: Whatever distress you have, it is precisely in the midst of this that God will appear to deliver you!

Do your enemies keep you awake at night? God will take away your anxiety so that you can get a good night's sleep. That is one way you can know that God is helping you. 

5 I lay down and slept;
    I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
    who have set themselves against me all around.

7 Arise, O Lord!
    Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
    you break the teeth of the wicked.

8 Salvation belongs to the Lord;
    your blessing be on your people! Selah

You can also pray like David did. In verse 7 David calls on God by saying "Arise, O LORD!"  That was Israel's battle cry. David was calling on God to go to battle for him. And something really awesome happened when he did that. When David changed his focus from his enemies to God, he had peace. He knew that God was watching every single thing that was happening to him. And he knew that God would see that justice was done and that his enemies would be destroyed. 

Our enemies are like ospreys looking for fish to devour! That is why David says in verse 7 "break the teeth of the wicked." 

Ospreys on the lookout!

Caught ya! LOL

I think that is one thing I like about the Psalms. They show us in a very real way that when our perspective changes, everything changes. We can start out focusing on ourselves and our circumstances, but the longer we pray, the more we realize that God is already working and he is on our side. We will be vindicated and our enemies will be destroyed. 

Some people think it is a sin to pray that wicked people will be destroyed because in the New Testament Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. But when people are acting in evil ways that do not glorify God, we are right to pray that their schemes will fail and that the evil they try to do to others would turn on themselves. We just have to leave the vengeance up to God and not take revenge ourselves. God says, "Vengeance is mine...and I WILL REPAY. That's a promise!