Read the passage

Psalm 56:3-4

World English Bible

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, I praise his word. In God, I put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

What surrounds this passage

Psalm 56 is David’s prayer while in danger from enemies. It moves between fear and trust rather than treating the fear as something to get past first.

The verses on either side

Psalm 56:1-7, World English Bible

Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me.
My enemies want to swallow me up all day long, for they are many who fight proudly against me.
When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.
In God, I praise his word. In God, I put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?
All day long they twist my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil.
They conspire and lurk, watching my steps, they are eager to take my life.
Shall they escape by iniquity? In anger cast down the peoples, God.

A question to sit with

What are you afraid of right now, if you say it plainly?

Why this one, and not these

3 passages were considered for this and turned down, each for a reason written at the time.

Isaiah 41:10: It opens by commanding the reader not to be afraid. To somebody who already is, that is an instruction they cannot obey, and failing it adds a second problem to the first.
2 Timothy 1:7: It can be heard as saying that fear does not come from God, and therefore that the reader’s fear is a spiritual failure rather than a response to something real.
Joshua 1:9: An exhortation to courage addressed to a leader before a military campaign. Its situation is too far from the reader’s for the words to arrive as intended.

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