Welcome back to Holistic Hearts. I'm your host, Kristin Chadwick. And this has been such a great series for me personally, just to be able to dig into each of these Psalms, which is so funny because if you listen to the overview of Psalm of Encountering the Psalms that I shared a few weeks back, I talked about how maybe the Lord will be jumping all around in different psalms. But so far we have hit every single one and he has really spoken to my heart.
And I pray that this is speaking to your heart and it's helpful for you to encounter Him. And today we're going to be talking about Psalm 3. Really, when a life feels so overwhelming, or in this instance when life feels like you're running for your life, where do you turn? And this psalm is really all about trust in crisis, trusting God in the midst of crisis. So let me read to you Psalm 3, and right now I'm going to read through the Passion translation.
I always love looking at this translation because it's. It just portrays the heart of the Father and the heart of Jesus in the heart of Holy Spirit so well. First, Jesus, come. Come and meet with us. Come and show us that you are our peace and that you are trustworthy. Father. God, thank you. That you are a God that protects. You are a God that is safe. You are a God that is trustworthy. Holy Spirit, come and bring revelation to each of the listeners here today.
Let it be multiplied in their spirit and in their body and in their mind. In Jesus name. Amen. All right, so again, Today is Psalm 3 teaching, and our next episode will be Psalm 3 encounter, where you'll have an opportunity to use your imagination and meditate on this psalm. Here we go. I'm going to read through Psalm 3, covered by the Glory King David's song when he was forced to flee from Absalom, his own son. The humbling of a king. Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me.
Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying, look, he's hopeless. Even God can't save him from this. The help of God. But in the depths of my heart I truly know that you, Yahweh, have become my shield. You take me and surround me with yourself. Your glory covers me continually. You lift high my head. I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence you send me a father's help, the song of safety. So now I'll lie down and sleep like a baby. Then I'll awake in safety.
For you surround me with your glory. Even though 10,000 dark prowlers powers prowl around me, I won't be afraid. The secret of strength Rise up and help me, Yahweh. Come and save me, God, for you will slap them in the face, breaking the power of their words to harm me. For the the Lord alone is my Savior. What a feast of favor and bliss he gives his people. I love that translation so much.
Psalm 3. So what we're going to do is I'm going to unpack the background and really the context of this Psalm. Number one. We understand that, uh, this psalm was absolutely written by David, and it was a specific moment in time, which was 2 Samuel 15 through 18. If you have a chance, go back and read that. Um, it really helps you get an understanding of what David might have possibly been feeling. Um, he was fleeing from his own son.
Absalom, who is David's son, was rebelling and attempting to murder his father. Imagine what that would feel like, the betrayal, the overwhelming terror, and also holding the space as a father for his son. So David is literally hiding for his life in this moment. And maybe we don't quite have that experience right now in 2025. I pray not.
But on a personal note, which we'll get there in a minute, I'm sure that there are moments where we feel overwhelmed, afraid, betrayed, feeling like running from the things of this world that can feel so heavy and so in points, hopeless. So continue to dig in. So that's the historical setting of Psalm 3. The significance of this psalm, I thought, was really cool as I was reading about the background and studying this, that this is the first psalm that is actually labeled a psalm.
And more specifically, this is pretty cool is the word psalm used here is mismore, which is. Which probably am pronouncing that wrong, but what I found fascinating in understanding this word is it is a psalm specifically used with an instrumental accompaniment, which is really cool because we're going to unpack that a little bit later on. The importance of music as spiritual warfare.
Another thing that is really cool about this Psalm is the appearance of the word Selah, which there is some back and forth on what this word possibly means, but overall it looks like it means pause, reflect, and really letting it sink in. So taking a moment as I read, even just through the Passion translation, you heard me reading the headings, the humbling of a king, the help of God, the song of safety, the secret of strength.
And each of those moments is a word, selah, that breaks it up that really David was wanting us to pause and just Let it soak in. So think about a speaker if you've ever heard the power of the pause. This is what David was doing. He was making sure that it sinks in. So your invitation this week in Psalm 3 is to pause. Let this sink in. This psalm really helps us see this pattern of trust in the midst of trouble or crisis.
So as we go through this psalm, I want you to see how David walks through this whole talking to himself and then coming to a place of surrender and worsh. First, David didn't ignore his fear. He acknowledged it. In verse one through two, he says, lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me. Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying, look, he's hopeless. Even God can't save him from this.
I don't know about you, but I've definitely heard voices where it's even God can't help you here, or this is hopeless. This is terrifying. And David faced in the midst of this overwhelming enemies, betrayal, isolation, we can experience anxiety, depression, grief, overwhelming circumstances. So right here in these two verses, David is showing us how to acknowledge the reality of what's happening. I like to call this and what I've learned is the lowercase t truth.
It is true David is running for his life. It is true that we are experiencing anxiety, depression, grief, overwhelming circumstances, trials, suffering. That is true. There is an acknowledgement of the reality of lowercase truth. One of my favorite prompts to get to the heart and the core of how I am doing is a journal prompt that starts with if I'm honest, blank.
So throughout this teaching today I'm going to give you some journaling prompts, but this is one of my favorites to get to the heart of what's going on internally. I don't know about you, but sometimes it's hard for me to get in touch with really what's happening underneath. And for some reason that those three words, if I'm honest, helps me to unpack really what is happening, what is going on within my heart. That is the lowercase t truth. And David does this so well.
He acknowledges what's going on. Number two. He moves on to verse three. But in the depths of my heart I truly know that you, Yahweh, have become my shield. You take me and surround me with yourself. Your glory covers me continually. Me, you lift my head. I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence, and you send me a father's help. David spoke what he knew to be true about God. What do you know about God. That is true.
That could be from your own experience that you've watched him move, or it could be watching him in other people's lives. It could be going to scripture. But God is his shield and protector, and he reminds himself who God is. The capital T. Truth is what we call it. That is kingdom truth. So here, David, he talks about how Yahweh has become his shield. In the depths of his heart, he knows that Yahweh has become his shield. I like to picture the Incredibles movie.
I cannot remember the girl's name in the movie, but she has the superpower where she can create this force field around her that is a protection. And honestly, I have pictured that over our family in times where it has been really intense. And to me, that is what God's protection looks like. There are other examples throughout the Bible of God's protection, but it talks about fortress, refuge, strong tower rock. All of those are great images of who God is.
So again, in your journal, ask the question, how has God shown up for you in the past? The third thing that David does is he declares the truth out loud. And I love this. I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence, and you send me a father's help. So beautiful. He is verbally declaring. He is using his voice. The power of using our voice out loud cannot be overstated. It is all about speaking to yourself. This is David talking to himself.
There's a great book by Steve Backlin, you're crazy if you don't talk to yourself. Basically, the neuroscience is affirming what David is doing and what is actually shown in the Bible, how when we choose to declare these declarations, it's actually rewiring our brain. Our brain really has this ability to form new neural pathways throughout our entire life.
So when we repeatedly speak truth, kingdom, truth, capital T, truth, you are literally creating new pathways in your brain that make it easier to access those truths in the future. So when you're speaking out loud versus I'm just thinking about it, you're engaging multiple brain regions. You're. You're engaging your motor cortex, which is the forming of the words, your auditory cortex, which is hearing yourself speak.
Your language centers, which is your processing of meaning, your memory centers, storing what you've said. This is a multisensory experience that David knew was going to shift his thinking. And remember, we are called to renew our minds. And there is a reason, I think, for that. When you are in crisis and your brain goes into rumination loops, which is Basically repetitive thinking. And I'm sure most of us have experienced that, where the what ifs?
Or you wake up in the middle of the night and you're kind of stuck on this one thought. So speaking truth out loud literally is going to interrupt those patterns and create new pathways. And that's what we see here. And in this psalm is David speaking to himself and speaking it out loud. I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence. You send me a father's help. How cool is that? There is a thing called the RAS in your brain, and it is basically like a brain filter.
When you repeatedly speak certain truths, your RAs, or reticular activating system, starts looking for evidence to support those statements. So when you declare, God is my shield, your brain begins to notice how he is protecting you more readily. So it's kind of that concept of, you know, when you go buy a new car and you have been looking for a red Corvette, and all of a sudden you start seeing all these red Corvettes, it's because your RAS system has become more aw.
So we've done this on holistic hearts, where we call them God winks, right? So we become more aware of how he is choosing to speak to us. And in this instance with David, he is speaking, God is my shield. So he is becoming more aware of how God is his shield. So again, speaking calming truths activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which means it's jumping back into a rest and digest mode, and it's going to help physically regulate your cortisol levels.
So this is where this is so cool when he says, so now I'll lie down and sleep like a baby. Then I'll awaken safety for you. Surround me with your glory. This is why he could sleep. This is why, in the midst of being hunted and know his son who wants to murder him, he could actually sleep because his declarations of trust literally calmed his nervous system. It reminds me of, I remember watching a retreat, a leader who was guiding somebody to help calm their nervous system.
And she said, place your hand over your heart and just repeat, I am safe. I am safe. And that's such a beautiful way to calm down and activate that parasympathetic nervous system. When you speak truth during emotional moments like crisis, those truths get encoded even more deeply into our hearts, into our memory, because emotion enhances memory formation. This is why David's practice of speaking to himself in all of the psalms that he has written was so empowerful, because he wasn't just Poetic.
He was actually literally rewiring his brain for trust instead of fear. And he had every right to be fearful, and yet he was declaring capital T, truth. Here was the pattern again. Number one, we acknowledge the reality. Lowercase t, truth. Number two, we remember who God is. Capital T, truth. And number three, we declare truth out loud. We use our voice. And notice on the end of the Psalm, David says, even though 10,000 dark powers prowl around me, I won't be afraid.
Rise up and help me, Yahweh. Come and save me, God, for you will slap them in the face, breaking the power of their words to harm me. For the Lord alone is my Savior. What a feast of favor and bliss he gives his people. That's where he ends, is worship, worship. So here is another big portion that I want you to take away from this short little Psalm. Three in these eight verses is that worship is a weapon. So we have declarations and we have worship.
Now, my own personal life, I have seen how worship is a weapon. But I also want to point you to multiple times in the Bible where worship has been a weapon. Jehoshaphat, King jehoshaphat's victory in 2nd Chronicles 20. There was a time when the Lord sends out his worship team to have victory over what the Lord was giving. Jehoshaphat. I encourage you guys to go read that because it is powerful how, how he uses the worship of people to win a battle. And that is just like him.
And I believe, like we talked about at the beginning, when I said I was going to unpack that word of the psalm that's used specifically Mizmore, or however you say it in Hebrew, and it's accompanied with music. I think this is really important. And with psalms and singing, we also see in Paul when he's imprisoned and how he chooses to worship instead of be overcome by trial and suffering and persecution.
And so he chooses to worship instead of come into a place of surrender, to fear, to hopelessness. In my own story, there have been times of overwhelming hardship, and to put on worship has changed the atmosphere. And I encourage you to find if you're in a season of crisis, if you're in a season of feeling betrayal or feeling overwhelmed, find a battle song, a worship song for this season. What do you need to hear?
I love what my friend Adam Paulson has said and what I've learned over the years, which is sometimes we don't need more words or more songs. We just need to believe the ones that we are singing and feel them in our hearts, which reminds me of that word Selah right? We need to pause. We need to let it sink in. So create some space for worship.
It may look like there have been times in in the past 20 years where worship looked like at church, worship looked like sitting in my car listening to one song and letting the tears flow and letting it touch my heart in the driveway. Sometimes it's sitting in a prayer closet singing out loud. Sometimes it looks like laying on the floor and just letting it soak in. Or maybe it's going on a hike and putting in your airpods and listening to worship.
Or it could look like playing an instrument and just letting it flow through you and acknowledging who he is. Or it could look like turning on the music in your living room and dancing it out and praising loudly speaking out loud. It depends on what do you need in the season and if you need a resource for that you can always go to our Spotify playlist and just type in Holistic Hearts Encountering the Book of Psalms playlist.
I think that's what it's called, but I'll put the link in our show notes of course. But I want us to take away from the Psalm 3 is that God's heart is for you. God's heart is to protect you. He wants to lock eyes with you and tell you he has got you. He wants to surround you with a warm glory blanket that you are protected. Take time to sit before Jesus this week. Journal through the prompts that we talked about and use the Psalm 3 encounter that's coming up next as well as an on ramp.
Pick out a worship song this week and let your heart be lifted, strengthened and shielded. Okay, I'll put the prompts in the show notes and I will talk to you next week.