Psalm 55

Cast Your Burden on the LORD

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.

¹Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
²Attend to me, and answer me;
I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
³because of the noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me,
and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
⁴My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
⁵Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
⁶And I say, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
⁷yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
⁸I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest."
⁹Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;
for I see violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰Day and night they go around it
on its walls,and iniquity and trouble are within it;
¹¹ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud
do not depart from its marketplace.
¹²For it is not an enemy who taunts me—
then I could bear it;it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—
then I could hide from him.
¹³But it is you, a man, my equal,
my companion, my familiar friend.
¹⁴We used to take sweet counsel together;
within God’s house we walked in the throng.
¹⁵Let death steal over them;
let them go down to Sheol alive;
for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.
¹⁶But I call to God,
and the LORD will save me.
¹⁷Evening and morning and at noon
I utter my complaint and moan,
and he hears my voice.
¹⁸He redeems my soul in safety
from the battle that I wage,
for many are arrayed against me.
¹⁹God will give ear and humble them,
he who is enthroned from of old,
Selah because they do not change and do not fear God.
²⁰My companion stretched out his hand against his friends;
he violated his covenant.
²¹His speech was smooth as butter,
yet war was in his heart;his words were softer than oil,
yet they were drawn swords.
²²Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you; he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.
²³But you, O God, will cast them down
into the pit of destruction;men of blood and treachery
shall not live out half their days.But I will trust in you.

Verses 1-8: David says upfront what he is asking for- that God would hear his prayer and be merciful. We find out in verse 3 that David is being oppressed by his enemy. In verse 6, David says he wants to, “fly away and be at rest”. Have you ever been in a situation that you wanted to escape from it? Does David come to the conclusion that this feeling is wrong? David does not give into this feeling to escape. Rather, he is honest with God and trusts that God will deliver him from the situation. How does it comfort you to know that David, a strong man in the faith, had these feelings?

Verses 9-15: In the beginning of this section of verses, David is praying for the city he is in. Have you ever prayed for the city you live in? In what ways do you see iniquity and trouble in your city? Take a break to pray for your city. In the next part, we find out that David has been betrayed by a close friend. David was a powerful king and warrior. Being betrayed meant that his life and the lives of his army could be at stake. No wonder he reacts so severely in verse 15!
This verse also shows by its plural tense that the betrayal affected a group of people to be against him. Can you think of a time that you were betrayed by a close friend? Take another break to pray for this person.

Verses 16-21: After strongly reacting to the betrayal of a friend, David turns his focus to praise God. Verse 17 says that David prays morning, noon, and night. How can you incorporate this idea into your prayer life? David comes to a conclusion in verse 19 that his enemies “do not fear God” and in 20 that a covenant was broken. They are not David’s enemies because of how they treated him, but because they are against the God he believes in. Are the enemies in your life ones that have wronged you or ones that have wronged God?

Verses 22-23: Look at verse 22. Does it say that God will take away your burden if you cast it on him? The psalm says God will sustain us in the midst of it. Have you seen how God can sustain you in the midst of a major burden such as finals or family problems? How does the psalm end? Does David take it into his own hands to try and bring justice to his enemies?