Anxious: Fighting Anxiety with the Word of GodSýnishorn

Day Three: When Prayer Time Was the Worst

Read Psalm 61:1-4. Reflect on David’s tone with the Lord. Do you approach the Lord similarly?

When I read those first two verses, it struck me that David was pretty direct. He was so serious. He didn’t say a bunch of words out of tradition or compulsion, as I still sometimes do today, but rather, he talked to God like he was talking to a real person. Verse 2 says, “I call to you from the ends of the earth when my heart is without strength.

During seasons of anxiety or fear, we can approach the Lord in prayer and find Him to be a “refuge” and “rock” and “strong tower” as David described Him in verses 2-3. But anxiety often keeps us from that. It keeps us stuck in our own loop of fears—whether they are, What will this church staff think of my prayer? or What will happen if my husband loses his job? or What is this lump under my arm?

Reread verse 4.

I just love verse 4. In fact, I think it is worthy of a nice “Mmmmmm.” In that verse, we witness David doing the most wonderful and biblical thing, which I imagine crushed the anxiety he was facing. He, as Colossians 3:2 tells us to do, “set [his mind] on things above, not on earthly things.”

Now, read Psalm 61:5-8. Notice the change of tone.

Commentary writer Matthew Henry said, “David, in this psalm, as in many others, begins with a sad heart, but concludes with an air of pleasantness—begins with prayers and tears, but ends with songs of praise.”4

That is so beautiful to me because I’ve experienced it. We can look at David’s prayer in Psalm 61 and model our own anxious prayers after it. We can speak to the Lord directly and earnestly without pretense. We can set our minds on the eternal hope He offers, and we can conclude our prayers by experiencing real peace, real hope, and real communion with the Father who loves us.