Singing Psalm 35 for help to fight your unseen enemies
- Karen Wallace
- Apr 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2025
Know your real though unseen enemies
A conversation turns from light hearted to one where you feel a sinking pit in your stomach after a thoughtless comment. The surprise in his voice after your admitting that you did not engage in a common activity for the person with whom you are speaking and for those within their circle, seemed to scream ‘there must be something wrong with you.’ Your feelings of inadequacy overtake your sense of reason and steal your joy. Tears of regret well up at, what you now believe to be, years of time apparently wasted in response to a thoughtless word from one who never intended to slay you with that word but did so all the same.
Well-intended or not, spoken off-the-cuff or said after reflecting on how badly it could be received, you are undone as your thoughts take that word and use it to mold you into a victim. It is now multiplied exponentially, whipping you around, and beating you mercilessly; you are unfavorably compared with others, you know, the ‘normal’ ones, and you feel like dirt.
What just happened? Your unseen enemies were hard at work.
Our unseen enemies are not flesh and blood, but they can influence flesh and blood for their purposes, deceiving them, making them think they are doing right as they act in ways that are unsupportive or even downright rejecting God’s ways of gentleness, peace, humility, and love.
These unseen enemies use fellow image bearers to bring about excruciatingly painful times through an unwillingness to engage coupled with moving confidently in directions based on false assumptions believed to be true. No problem platform is off limits. At home, in the workplace, while exercising, in the political or social arenas, among friends and family alike, feelings of hopeless dread can tempt you to take matters into your own hands as if the outcome depended solely upon your own words or actions.
What if instead of beginning with your own words or actions in a faceoff with another person or with yourself, you pour out your heart to the one who can open both your eyes and theirs, bring about understanding, and make them true friends? He helps you take yourself in hand to resist fighting those who oppose you, fighting yourself, or fighting God, but rather looking to God to handle your real though unseen enemies.
Ask him, cry out to him for help to see beneath the obstacles they unwittingly place on your journey to come to Jesus for rest as they are being used as pawns to strike you with false comparisons, and that they would be given new eyes to also find the path to peace by his grace and mercy. Your unseen enemies, supernatural and more clever and powerful than humans, are no match for God.
Love those under the influence of your unseen enemies
Knowing that they know not what they do, you can love them, want the best for them, and pray that they would become as you are, one who was slain in Christ who loved you and gave himself for you. They are acting as enemies, but they are being influenced by your true unseen enemies that are stronger than human but not anywhere near as strong as the one who holds you in his arms.
Because of his steadfast love, God fights unseen enemies for his people, helping them to resist and turn from magnifying themselves to trust him rather than retaliate and seek their own vindication. Instead, you can have compassion on these who are being used for evil by default, not able to free themselves from such slave labor and not yet willing to cry out to the one who can free them.
Sing Psalm 35 as you trust Jesus to fight your real though unseen enemies as you love those you can see
As you sing Psalm 35 you get the sense that even if no one else cares for you, the Lord’s care for you is enough, abundant, sufficient for you. How intimately he knows, hears, and acts in response to your emotionally detailed urgent pleas for strength to go on against unseen enemies vying for your soul, for confidence in the face of those who seem to wonder if you measure up or who outright falsely accuse you of being a failure! Dwell not on your unseen enemies but think instead about Jesus, your best friend.
Listen here and learn how the ease of thinking of Jesus, his character, his nearness, his creative, redemptive, providential, saving work for you and his church is synonymous to thinking of whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy without having to take up and wrap your mind around each of these words continually.***
With one eye on Jesus and the other eye on his resurrection power to turn you and those on the path to death onto the path of life, “then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.” ~ Psalm 35:28
***The complete thought is from minute 35:00 to minute 38:50 with this in particular around minute 36:40.
March 14, 2022
Posted on April 6, 2022
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Heart ♥️ reflection
February 5, 2025
But he said to them, “The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind.” ~ Exodus 10:10
Question: How do I respond when someone impugns my motives?
Heart reflection: Entrust yourself to your faithful creator, and continue to do good.
Of peace they will not speak at all,
Toward peaceful neighbors
scheme with lies.
With brazen words accusing me,
They say, “We saw this with our eyes.” ~ Psalm 35:20-21
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The Psalms—Q&A
“How long, O Lord, will You allow this?
How long look on and let this be?” ~ Psalm 35:17a
How can singing Psalm 35 help me grow in my affection for God and in my connection with others?
What kind of relationship do you have to have with the all-powerful Creator of all things to be able to ask him (respectfully) to hurry up already?
The kind that knows that God is as compassionate as he is mighty and will in mercy condescend to your double “how long” complaint.
You ask:
“How long? How long?”
The Lord responds:
“I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.” ~ Joel 2:25-27
You ask the one who knows and controls all things. Though I don’t know much about the reasons I must sometimes wait, I know the one who knows all, the one who is the beginning and the end. One tri-awesome God is enough. God, the Father, provides for you and protects you. God, the Son, Jesus, redeems your life from the pit, God, the Holy Spirit, comforts you, counsels you, and makes straight your path. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” I can wait for the one who waits for me.
Engage and grow together!
“Iron sharpens iron,
and one man sharpens another.” ~ Proverbs 27:17
November 28, 2025
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