Singing Psalm 55 for anxiety prevention
- May 5, 2022
- 13 min read
Updated: Apr 17
Singing Psalm 55 for anxiety prevention when by yourself
Betrayal. Is there anything worse than to misplace your trust in someone? Only being the betrayer is worse.
When you go over in your mind how the disloyalty came about, singing Psalm 55 will clue you in that there is one who understands and is with you in it.
Spiritual forces of doubt tempt you to be leery about trusting God to bring about good for you and your loved ones. You want to escape from where God has you. As you sing Psalm 55 you know it is safe to tell him every detail.
Enemies and even false friends are no match for the Lord. He is aware of them from afar and not surprised by them. He is certainly not afraid of them. You have every reason to trust his protection for you against them. You are under his wings and therefore need not fear them nor be surprised by them either. He is your anxiety prevention plan!
The sane way amidst the insanity all around you is to do your best and leave the results to God. He will subdue his and your enemies either by turning them into friends or keeping them from harming you ultimately. No suffering here can outweigh what God has in store for those who love him and are willing to wait for him.
Take it one day at a time, one moment at a time. When you realize that grace is apportioned as needed and is not given to store up in advance, trust increases and worry decreases.
To consider the one who cares for you as greater than the care he gives you is to be free from anxiety. You know that every worry you cast onto him will be heard and processed well and that he will reward you for your dependence on him in due time.
Singing Psalm 55 for anxiety prevention when around others
The crowds are fickle. One moment they want to worship you and the next stone you. Recognize triumph and disaster as the imposters that they are. Moment-by-moment dependence on the one worthy of worship is what protects you with anxiety prevention moment-by-moment from words that can sting like stones.
Struggle in prayer for those under duress. Remember and be thankful for those whose faith you borrowed when you didn’t have it yourself.
You pray for them to be resilient, to have the foresight to know evil’s end. You pray for them to have the ability to laugh at future cares and to be anchored on the rock that won’t budge.
Each person is a moving target, not that you’re trying to shoot them, but just to have a in relationship with one is an unsteady thing that you must be prepared for. You yourself are also moving.
In light of this, you anchor yourself on the rock that isn’t moving. Only then can you weather whatever storms come as people live in their pleasantries and vicissitudes, as they will. When the shift in personality or plans happen, you will not be surprised or taken unawares, but neither will you be fatalistic.
Rather, you will have compassion on a fellow wavering human being. You are following the one who made you, remembering the compassion he has on you. Though all around you is unsettled, you are grounded in him and secure.
Singing Psalm 55 for anxiety prevention as you consider your home with God that begins here and now stretching through death into all eternity
It’s not: ‘You’re out here on your own, trying to do what would please God.’ Let’s get the order of things right. God has made his home with you. You start out with anxiety prevention from a place of security at home with him, the true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
From home base, he sent you out as an emissary to do whatever good he has prepared in advance for you to do. As you are here doing that, he is in as close a relation with you as if you were sitting together in your home. And, in a way, you are even closer, because he has entrusted you with whatever good you could do while you are here in his name.
And you entrust to him what you have committed to do in his name each day. He knows how much you want for people to love him, to seek his face, to be dependent upon him, and to not think that they are out on their own with everything on their shoulders.
You want those you love to know that they can come to Jesus and learn from him who is gentle and humble in heart and find rest for their souls. You know from depending on him that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. And you want anxiety prevention for them as well.
You thank your Father for this mission, for this love, and for the oneness that you can have with him, for the security, for the comfort and even for the discomfort.
As you go out into battle, fully equipped with the armor of God, you know that whether you live or whether you die, you have victory in Christ. And you praise him for that.
The way you will be with God in the new order traces back to what your connection should look like now and how that ought to influence the way you interact with others. Your home base is somewhere greater.
You have been entrusted as an ambassador here to proclaim him, yet your home is with your master who sent you for a time, is with you presently, and will surely come for you to take you to your permanent home at just the right time.
Meanwhile you can bear it when even close friends and family misunderstand you or even reject you. Because you are at home with your maker now, you are able to rise above even that.
If you knew there was a person who would help you with every single thing, who is both willing and able to do this, and all you had to do was ask, wouldn’t you ask?
This person is available to you at any time just for the asking and there would be no cost for this help. Would you not take him up on it? The key is knowing that the Lord is faithful and that he cares. This is who he is. Anxiety prevention ultimately comes from knowing that it is impossible for him to be unfaithful and uncaring.
I pray that you and as many as possible would know that God is such a person, and not just one person but three persons, each person willing and able to help. May you always take him up on anxiety prevention with reverence and gratitude, with whole-hearted thanks, praising him every moment.
May you trust him to bring each one of his people home with him at just the right time. May we continue to intercede for one another alongside the Lord Jesus who intercedes for each one of his people always.
Picture this: You encounter a big, muscular dog who could have mauled you and killed you while on a walk. Instead he went away after you told him to go home. You thank God for his anxiety prevention, for helping you not to be afraid, and for giving you trust in him.
But even if it went the other way, you would have never left the Lord’s presence, and he would never have left yours. He has a new, immortal body to give you. You will receive it at just the right time.
There truly is no reason to be afraid. But even if you are afraid, he has compassion on you in your fear as well. This is your peace: having the God of peace with you.
“Cast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.” ~ Psalm 55:22
May 5, 2022
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Heart ♥️ reflection
February 27, 2025
“Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is it own trouble.” ~ Matthew 6:34
Question: How do living, eating, dressing, and anxiety relate?
Heart reflection: They relate in how you choose to use your time and energy. *** I remember living and food just happened around life. We didn’t think or talk much about it and basically ate to live. *** Except around the holidays when the food tasted so good that we lived to eat. Somewhere along the line that holiday sentiment infiltrated into everyday life when I remember eating, and life just happened around food. First, the focus was taste. Eventually, the focus became health. But still food was central. Life had taken a backseat. *** I remember friends, and the clothes we wore were chosen unconsciously for comfort. Clothing choice seemed incidental and inconsequential as no one noticed what each other was wearing. With curiosity and interest in one another, our eyes were the parts of our bodies that got the most attention, and as we often walked or ran together, it also helped when we watched where we were going. *** Life in the body is more than exercise too, yet we know physical exercise has value, and eating with others is a good way to connect, so Lord, please help us enjoy these good gifts from you without handing over to them the driver’s seat of life in your place! *** Only with Jesus can we reorder the way we choose to spend our time around the solid truth that life is more than food and the body is more than clothes. *** As I am writing this on Wednesday, yesterday was Monday’s tomorrow, today is tomorrow’s yesterday, tomorrow will be yesterday on Friday, and such is how the work week is accounted for unless the Lord Jesus comes to make a most amazing interruption to it. The executive center of the brain can process what was and is and help us plan. But what is to come, what will be, is a mystery. It’s unknown to us. It seems that yesterday is resting, today is rejoicing in peace through its groans, and Jesus tells us that tomorrow has anxiety covered in that it not is, but will be, anxious for itself! *** So you can join yesterday in resting in Jesus. You can join today in its rejoicing menagerie. But there is no worry for you to do for tomorrow because what Jesus says is true and reliable yesterday, today, and forever. Tomorrow takes the job of being anxious all to itself.
“And he redeemed my soul unharmed
That I at peace may be.” ~ Psalm 55:18a
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The Psalms—Q&A
… they tested the LORD by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” ~ Exodus 17:7
How does the Lord Jesus leading me to sing Psalm 55 help me grow in my affection for God and in my connection with others?
“Give ear to this, my prayer, O God,
And hide not from my cry.” ~ Psalm 55:1
Who gets the glory when we pray? Who ought to get the glory when God answers prayers we’ve prayed perhaps for years?
The first time I heard it, I felt a bit uneasy. The second time, I thought, “Surely not. I must have misunderstood.” The third time I took note to be on high alert.
Since then, I have lost count of the number of times individuals have been inadvertently in awe of the one who prayed. They have, in effect, relegated the Lord to playing second fiddle in the prayers he has answered as if the power lies in the one praying the promises and not in the one being prayed to, the Promiser. We’re enamored with the one with no power rather than the one with all of it. If this isn’t a bona fide recipe for anxiety, I don’t know what is. “Sure. Put it on yourself to figure out what only the creator of all knows. Sure thing. Let’s get right on that.”
How do we turn what ought to make us humble into an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back? We want to feel in control. We want to feel like we’re doing something tangible when we pray. That we are making some impact. Why don’t we relish embracing the sculpting tool as the master sculptor works on our hearts as we pray? Is it because we lose trust in the sculptor with each painful cut that we endure day after day, week after week, month after month, and if it be his will, year after year? Do we think we can better do this business of growing into the head, Jesus, without the suffering, and if made to suffer, we’d better be getting the lion’s share of the glory, the credit, the acknowledgment that what we did earned us some stripes, some medals, badges of honor, stars, or Purple Hearts? We don’t intend to manipulate God, but even prayer is not exempt from the idol factory’s production line in our hearts!
Neither the prophetess and widow, Anna, nor the widow mentioned in 1 Timothy 5:5 took center stage when they asked God for help. Presumably, the reason they prayed without fanfare and didn’t give it up was likely due to the fact that they trusted in both the infinite compassion and power of the one they prayed to. Their stories are presented in God‘s word in such a way that it never crossed my mind that they would take any stock in their act of prayer or repeating words, even words on their hearts, with this or that frequency or using a certain method, pattern, or display of one sort or another. They didn’t rely on some scheme that proves successful in bending the Supreme One’s will to theirs or a surefire sequence that, if perfectly followed, is guaranteed to strongarm the Omnipotent One. “Give me a break. Really. Don’t make me laugh.” I can almost hear each of them say.
No.
Their stories, like those of the Syrophoenician woman, Mary, or Hannah to name a few exemplify what intangible trust in God looks like. They only serve to glorify the one who ought to get every bit of glory when he answers “Yes” or “No” or “Wait” along with “I’ve got something so much better for you” as they pray.
Would you be more inclined to worship God if he relied on you to direct his answers and their timing?
What to bring to mind at all times: What is seen is temporary. What is unseen is eternal.
If you only know about God‘s infinite compassion, you might think him a pushover. If you only know about God‘s infinite power, you might respond to him with craven fear running from his presence rather than to him. But when you, like Elijah, know that God has both, and singing the Psalms, you know he does, you prize your connection to him. Your affection for God is orders of magnitude greater than your affection for anyone else. Those who counted it an honor to suffer for the Name knew it or they could never have counted suffering an honor. When you pray without ceasing day and night, you know it. While at first, you might restlessly complain and sigh, God graciously moves you to pray powerfully, effectively, and with purpose because he helps you to know, trust, and rest in that he hears and answers as he thinks best, how and when he thinks best.
A dear woman recently personified “Pray” and “Worry” in a mutually exclusive way when she said: “Pray don’t worry; Worry don’t pray.”
“We shared sweet fellowship and walked
To God‘s house in the throng.” ~ Psalm 55:14
You learn to view lesser connections in light of the greatest connection for whom you have the greatest affection. You no longer experience the waiting within relational gaps as an unpleasant anxiety-provoked longing but as a hopeful expectant longing, anticipating that God will certainly complete his good work in those whom he has made dear to you and has given you to steward in some way. They are actually his as well as you are. When and how he answers is up to him. May he get all the glory for the timing and the way he answers. God’s presence with you is your greatest treasure. His being with you, connected to you, is more rewarding and joy-inducing by far than even his protection of you or his provision for you.
What could be better than genuinely having the true God’s gracious and merciful, shepherding and directing presence?
Absolutely nothing.
If I ask for prayer, I don’t want it to be that I believe God won’t listen to me to give me what I want so maybe he’ll listen to you to give me what I want. If I ask for prayer, I do want it to be that we can come to our Father with requests in line with his will, with one heart, trusting that he is for us, that we are for him, and that he will answer best in both substance and timing.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” All that you give us is better and sweeter because they are gifts from your hand enjoyed in your presence with you, not in place of or instead of you. You give us the only reason we need to live. And if some gifts you take back for a time, we’ve not lost you, the greatest source of joy, but only a lesser one, and only for the time that you need them back for your good reasons. Every leaf on the tree is happy where it is until you direct it to fall and become a part of the nitrogen-rich soil, a foundation for new life. Though we love your relational gifts dearly, none compares with you; and we are only able to love them so, because your Holy Spirit pours your love into our hearts lest we care only about ourselves. You enable us to die to ourselves so that we might enjoy loving others deeply and genuinely from the heart. It is only because we can trust who you are that we can confidently pray and wait for you to help us volunteer to get out of the way. We ask that you destroy what would eternally destroy us, whatever is not like Jesus in us. Make us like the seed that dies and produces a crop. Thank you for giving us your purpose worthy of living out that goes so far beyond us that it reaches to Jesus, the King of glory, whom you have committed to form in each one of us, your people!
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”
“Brothers, pray for us.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:23-25
“Have you been looking forward to telling about trusting Jesus but instead He is asking you to show what trust is, by waiting?” *
“At evening, morning, and at noon,
He hears my cry and plea.
And He redeems my soul unharmed
That I at peace may be
Cast all your burden on the LORD
And He will you sustain;” ~ Psalm 55:17-18a, 22a
*https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/ ~ April 13 ~
Engage and grow together!
“Iron sharpens iron,
and one man sharpens another.” ~ Proverbs 27:17
April 17, 2026
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