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Singing Psalm 124 to disarm threats

Singing Psalm 124 you learn how to rightly disarm threats

Soaring seabird over ocean

What do you do when you feel threatened?

Real threats.

Perceived threats.

Empty threats.

Semi-loaded or fully-loaded.

Threats that come from the outside. Those with an agenda other than the Lord’s threaten to consume you in one way or another. How do you disarm threats that seem to come at you from every direction?


Threats that come from within. You found that you put your hope in something or someone that wasn’t promised to you. Now that person or thing has been swept away from your existence. The disappointment threatens to undo you.


In burning anger like fierce waters sweeping to drown you, like swift streams that would engulf you, they seem like torrents pulling you down, suffocating you. Raging flood waters with mighty waves threatening to swallow you alive, choking all the life out of you.


How can you disarm threats in relationships that are bruised or broken?


Paul had great desire to see the Thessalonian brethren face to face. He was hindered by Satan but wrote to them instead in an attempt to help them disarm threats from the tempter.


Jesus desired to be a friend to those who were unwilling, at least for a time. “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” ~ Luke 13:34


He can relate to anyone who has ever been rejected and is always willing to befriend you. In fact, he reorients you to call on him as a best friend. When you do, he won’t refuse you. And those who cross the Lord’s design will themselves be crossed. May they cross over to the Lord’s far better agenda for their lives.


Singing Psalm 124 you note other ways that attempt to disarm threats

  • Acquiesce. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” This is the path of least resistance. It seems peaceable at first since you avoid immediate conflict. Over time, though, it leads to constant war with self and others.

  • Give in against your will. No peace.

  • Withdraw and hide/run and relocate. You live in constant fear that those with nefarious intent will find you.

  • Stand up to them and fight them in your own strength.

  • Avoid it and turn to alcohol or some other drug to quell your anxiety, a temporary fix to disarm threats whether real or perceived.*


All of the above presumes you are in this on your own. Right as you start to sing Psalm 124, the tension builds as you consider the unthinkable and the other-worldly:


  • What if the Lord was not on your side and you were left to yourself?

  • Will you cry out for insight as well as deliverance?

  • Can those dead in sin cry out unless life is restored to them?

  • How can you constructively express your disapproval of those who threaten?

  • Who makes you courageous to disarm threats and willing to wait for insight no matter how long?


Unless God changes our hearts to draw us to himself, we have no hope. No life.

Lord, please change our hearts; give us the courage to wait for you to supply wisdom and words that heal. Thank you that you don’t leave us wallowing in our mess, that you don’t leave us to ourselves, that you raise us from the dead in Christ.

Thank God you can be reborn into a new life.

Singing Psalm 124 you have only one sure way to disarm threats

Singing Psalm 124 you have processed though in your mind what it would be like, the utter futility of trying to disarm threats, real or perceived, on your own. You cry out to the Lord as your only source of help, your only aid. You are secure that the one who made heaven and earth is on your side.


“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” ~ Acts 4:29


You disarm threats of any type, of any magnitude, whether aimed at your body, mind, heart, or soul by crying out to your Lord like a hungry, nursing baby.


You become free, if not in body at first, then in spirit throughout the waiting process, resting in your Lord like a satisfied, weaned child.


You disarm threats with full confidence in the one who is master over them. You disarm threats trusting the Lord placed himself on your side. You wait for his lead to safety and freedom and therefore can disarm threats with hope.


Thank you for being there for your people at all times, Lord! 


Even if everyone else leaves you, he never will.


The Lord is blessed who snatches you from the teeth of cruel ones whose plans are contrary to the Lord’s ways. He tears the snare out of the clutches of the trapper so you are free as a bird to confidently disarm threats fleeing to safety.


Whether working or resting at home or taking flight to travel, you reflect on who you have trusted and who you will trust each moment as you disarm threats going forward.


Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

    and makes flesh his strength,

    whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He is like a shrub in the desert,

    and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

    in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

    whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

    that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

    for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

    for it does not cease to bear fruit.

“The heart is deceitful above all things,

    and desperately sick;

    who can understand it?

“I the Lord search the heart

    and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways,

    according to the fruit of his deeds.” ~ Jeremiah 17:5-10


“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” ~ Titus 3:4-5


With Jesus on your side, the Father and the Spirit are on your side. You work out your own salvation with fear and trembling but “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” ~ Philippians 2:13


The triune God looks at you and sees not your deeds, foul as filthy rags. Instead, he sees Jesus’ pure deeds that he attributes to you in rich grace and mercy. He helps you put one foot in front of the other so that you can peacefully disarm threats that come at you both from outside of you and from within.


“‘Unless the LORD had been there on our side!’

    Let Israel now testify to this:

‘Unless the LORD had been there on our side

    When cruel men against us rose to strive,

They would indeed have swallowed us alive.’

“Blessed be the LORD who snatched us from their teeth!

For, as a bird would from its trapper flee,

Our snare is torn and from it we are free!

Yes, in the LORD’s name is our only aid,

By whom the heavens and the earth were made.”~ Psalm 124:1-3a, 6-8


*Concept from Bold Move

“Psychological avoidance is any response to a perceived threat that brings immediate emotional relief but comes with long-term negative consequences. Put simply, avoidance gives us fast but temporary relief from discomfort but keeps us stuck in the long run.” ~ Luana Marques


I would add that there is an easy remedy, albeit a humbling one, one easy way to disarm threats to psychological avoidance: place yourself under and in sync with the Lord who created us distinctly to go to him with everything.


Independence from him makes us slaves to ourselves, and Jesus frees us from that when we stop avoiding him. To disarm threats by coming to Jesus for rest is an easy and bold move that flies in the face of secular society which prides itself on independence.



April 23, 2022 – June 16, 2023



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