Three Phases of King David’s Faith Expressed in Psalm 3
Phases of Faith as We Pray Through Fear
By Jeannie Pace
The author of Hebrews describes faith as the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (11:1) Biblical faith guarantees we can be more certain about realities of the unseen world than we can be about the tangibles of our physical existence.
Faith is meant to be used, challenged, and grown.
The Corinthian church was encouraged to put their faith into practice. 2 Corinthians 1:24
James 1:3 assures us our faith will be tested so our endurance can fully develop. We are to “stand firm in your faith”. (I Corinthians 16:13)
Faith helps you fight well in the Lord’s battles. Faith can also be “shipwrecked”. Timothy was encouraged to “cling to your faith”. (I Timothy 1:10)
From this small sampling of Scripture, we learn faith is not static. Faith moves and grows, but the growth of faith will not be a constant. Growth is never a straight line. There will be times – sometimes long seasons – of doubt and trouble that puts faith on a non-linear course.
Just as our physical growth is staged, faith will grow through phases. The scholarly work of Dr. Latayne Scott describes in detail the phases of faith in her scholarly book, The Hinge of Your History, The Phases of Faith .
Phase one of faith is when we receive the promises and commands of God. In ancient times promises were delivered by God or his representative. Today we receive our promises through the Word of God represented to us in the Bible.
We enter the middle phase when our faith is tested and we are confronted with troubles. We experience relational problems, or financial difficulties or physical danger. God’s promises seem unlikely or unreasonable. These obstacles can be varied in size and duration. In the second phase we may live and act as if God’s promises do not exist. Our faith is tested in phase 2 but our endurance has a chance to grow.
Finally, we will have a harvest of blessing in phase 3 if we do not give up. (Hebrews 12:1-13) This third phase is the resolution phase and a result of God’s actions.
Let’s examine faith moving through the phases as expressed by King David in his prayer found in Psalm 3.
Psalm 3 retells the time David fled from his son Absalom. (2 Samuel 15) This was a real-life experience for him. At the end of King David’s reign Absalom forms a resistance army and stages a violent rebellion against his father, the king. It is a successful coup against his father.
2 Samuel 15 tells us that David must flee his own house in the city he established as the capital and he is running into the hills with a few hundred loyal people but with an army of 12,000 soldiers chasing him. This is a really bad day. Imagine the fear and unknown.
How did David achieve his kingly status? David was a no-name shepherd boy and the runt of the litter. One of the most important prophets of Israel, Samuel, shows up at his dad’s house and says Yahweh says one of the great kings of Israel will emerge from his house. (I Samuel 16) Jesse, the dad, assumes it’s the first born because he is well-built and attractive. What is God’s response? No, not that one. They run through all the sons and each is rejected. Samuel asks if there are any other sons. Yes, there is one more in the field watching the sheep. God says, “This is the one, anoint him.” (I Sam 16:12)
David now enters phase one of his faith. God promised David he will be king. Out of sheer grace and generosity, God elevated David to the highest status in the land. God protects David from the envious King Saul and blesses David through many troubles until he eventually comes into the kingship.
David has many successes as king and will be called a “man after God’s own heart.” (Acts 13:22) How is it that David, the king, is later run out of town and rejected? There is a key moment when David takes all his gifts that God has given him — his status — his big family — and something turns in his heart so that he begins to take them for granted. He sees these gifts as something he can use for self-advantage. This takes the form of seeing a woman he wants, forcing himself on her, getting her pregnant and then murdering her husband. From here, his world falls apart. His family falls apart, the kingdom falls apart and his life falls apart.
Phase 2 contradictions begin for David and his confidence in being God’s anointed spirals downward as fear and anxiety increase. David’s fear is two-sided. There is a clear physical threat of 12,000 rebel soldiers out to kill him. The second layer of fear is in the propaganda that Absalom and the army are spreading about David.
What are his enemies saying? God is finished with David. The enemies are not saying, “We do not believe in God.” Or that God does not deliver people. They are saying, “God is through with David.” There is no more favor or salvation for David left in God. This is an attack on David’s identity, his significance and his status.
This is what Absalom and other enemies are capitalizing on — they are spreading propaganda that God is finished with David. He was God’s chosen King, but not anymore. The once exalted King is fleeing from his own son into the woods. There is more being threatened than just his life. It’s his identity. Who is David now if he is not a successful King and father? Now he is none of those things. This is what they are calling into question.
Human fear is complex. The most common form of fear was identified by Rollo May in 1967. He gave us the concept of anxiety – a household name now. He said anxiety is different from other kinds of fear. “Fear is an instinctual response to a clear and present danger.” Fear is when there is an identifiable source of danger or threat and an instinct floods your body with adrenaline so that you get a burst of energy and burst of clarity to respond to the threat. “This is a positive, constructive emotion because it saves your life” stated Rolla May.
But another type of fear is called anxiety. May’s definition of anxiety was contrasted with fear. Fear is temporary, a flood of intensity and energy. Anxiety is vague – a feeling of dread, weakness, fragility with no clear identifiable source. In his worldview, anxiety is a fear that renders your life and accomplishment meaningless. He said anxiety was the wear and tear of 1,000 little deaths. It is the disappointments and failures that hit our life and shatter our dreams. Our physical wellbeing is not at stake with anxiety, it is the sense of who we are. My identity and my story get called into question through this ongoing sense of weakness and fragility. This is what he called anxiety.
David was a warrior. He knew the lightning storm flash of fear. He is now faced with anxiety that contradicts what God called him to be (Phase 2). When fear and anxiety collide, destruction can occur unless we keep God’s promises elevated in our minds. Even though David is seriously flawed and wrestles with his intense situation, David endures and will understand God’s solution in the phase 3 resolution.
What process does David utilize to move through the contradictory phase two? In verse one of this prayer notice what David does first. He brings his fear and source of anxiety to God. ”Lord (Yahweh) I have so many enemies; so many are against me. Many are saying, “God will never rescue him.” (Other translations: there is no salvation for him in God)
David has a clear threat (fear) of 12,000 trained soldiers hunting him down, but the propaganda of his enemies is eating away his sense of self and who God called him to be (anxiety). David’s whole life is shaped by becoming king. Who is he if he’s not King and God has abandoned him? David prays through the present danger (fear) and prays through the anxiety of Absalom’s propaganda.
Notice how David elevates God’s phase one promises over the contradictions in phase 2. (verse 3) “But you Yahweh are a shield around me. You are my glory. You are the one who lifts my head high. I call out to Yahweh and He answers me from His holy mountain.”
Do you hear the tone shift? Something profound took place in this fearful and anxious man. He moves his attention from the circumstances onto God and onto God’s character.
How does God intervene? First, David recalls, “Yahweh, you are a shield around me.” A shield is for protection – to keeps bad things from happening to you. Sure, God keeps bad things from happening to us. (Psalm 124 and Romans 8:28) But there’s more. If you strap on a shield at the beginning of the day, what is the assumption about how the day is going to be? Is the assumption the shield will PREVENT horrible things from happening? No. You put on a shield because you assume terrible things ARE COMING.
A shield protects the valuable parts of you from annihilation when the bad things happen. The shield is around him – a big, massive thing that covers him. Things are getting bad, yet Yahweh is a shield. Yahweh is not preventing but protecting – right there – so close – protecting. David reckons with the fact he could die, but recognizes God is his shield.
As we identify the source of our fears, hardship, confusion and tragedy, one of our basic assumptions is that God has abandoned me. God is no longer present with me. As we pray and grapple with the contradictions we have to dig through that assumption. This belief is that God’s role in my life is to keep bad things from happening to me because if he is good and powerful, he would never let bad things happen to me. Such a God is not the God of the Bible. This is not the promise. The promise is that God is right here in your broken world. God will be close to you in tragedy. A paradox of suffering is that God draws closer. Sometimes God rescues his people out of difficult situations and sometimes he doesn’t. The difficulties can be what is shaping the heart and mind and character of the one he loves.
Another way David progresses through the contradiction phase and into the resolution phase is recalling that God is his glory. Why does David grasp onto this?
The Hebrew word for glory is kavod– something that is heavy. In Judges 3 a king of Moab called Eglon is called kavod because he is heavy.
Heavy has another meaning. It is something weighty and significant like a weighty matter.
God, you are my glory, God is the most significant important thing to be aware of.
Why do we glorify God––why does God need us to do this? We’re not trying to help God look important. We are invited to increase God’s kavod, his reputation and honor. Whatever we do, we can do it to God’s honor and glory. We are made in God’s image. We are image bearers. We do this poorly and sometimes better. When humans ‘image’ God well they have kavod. David realizes his last few years have not added to God’s kavod.
People can have kavod too. (Psalm 8) David dies having enjoyed kavod. ( I Chronicles 29:28)
Kavod– glory – is about your status – about your position that gives you significance.
What defined David’s rags to riches story is that a shepherd boy becomes a great King. Now as he flees from the son’s rebellion David does not have his glory – his kavod.
In phase 2 David must acknowledge he has lost his family. He is not a successful father. Absalom murdered a brother for raping his sister and the family has fallen apart.
He was once a successful nation builder – not anymore.
He was once a powerful King – not anymore.
He once had moral integrity – not anymore.
Why would David comment in this low point of his life, “You are my glory?” “God, you are the thing that gives me significance and meaning and purpose?” Because something other than God has been his kavod in his life. He squandered it and now has a wrecked life.
Praying through his phase 2 fears David realizes he has misplaced his kavod. He has failed to increase God’s reputation and honor and misplaced his own kavod.
The struggles strip away at David until he recognizes that the only significant thing about him is that Yahweh is his glory. God’s attentions and his care are the only thing David needed to give his life meaning and significance. This is a powerful confession that restores God to glory.
The other idea that moves David closer to phase 3 is recognizing, “You are the one who lifts my head.” We have the same idea in English. To “lift your head high” is to be confident. David confesses he had ruined what God gave him and that he had no reason to be confident, but God is the one that can hold his head high.
Reading verse 4 David clearly discerns God’s action in the resolution phase. God answered from his holy mountain.
This compromised man knows that Yahweh is answering from his holy hill. The holy hill was the mountain of Zion – the city of Jerusalem – the city David built as a capital. On this highest hill David set up the dwelling place of God – the tabernacle.
What’s happening at the tabernacle that allows David – sinful and selfish – to look towards God and know he has been forgiven and shown grace? The death of the animal covering the sin of the one who is praying. The sacrifices as a substitute for sin.
What can give a man like David confidence that God wants to be his kavod? He is looking towards the tabernacle and the substitute that covers his sin. Yahweh is for him and he is forgiven.
We stand at the cross. Jesus is our ultimate substitute. His life, death and resurrection covers our sin. His resurrection provides new life.
Now David can finally get a good night’s sleep. He can rest in mercy and grace because Yahweh sustains him. David’s life is in God’s hand. (Psalm 3:5)
I laid down.
I slept.
I awoke.
Because God sustained me.
Day and night indicate totality and expresses that God’s protection was a token of His complete deliverance.
“I am not afraid of 10,000 enemies who surround me on every side.” (verse 6)
David is convinced that even if a spear pierces his chest, God is his glory and God’s commitment to him is stronger than death. This doesn’t cancel his emotions but puts David at peace.
Verse 7 sounds vengeful but actually releases the burden of revenge to God. “Arise Yahweh stop my enemies and break their jaws. Shatter their teeth.”
Far be it from David to stuff his emotions and deny there is a real injustice taking place. Instead of taking a violent, vengeful route David prays through his raw emotions. He knows there are some things in the world worth being angry about and prays through it.
As an act of faith, he commits his enemies over to God’s justice: “Victory comes from you, O Lord.” The story bears this out. David did not lift one finger to defeat Absalom! The resolution was totally a result of God’s actions.
Absalom had a vain obsession with his hair (he cut it once a year and it weighed 5 pounds) – he even made a statue of himself and his long hair (2 Samuel 18:18). During battle Absalom’s long hair gets tangled in a tree branch and leaves him vulnerable for someone to throw a spear through his chest.
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If deliverance comes from anywhere, it comes from Yahweh. “May you bless your people.”
People like us.
May it be true of us that when we face 1,000 little deaths of disappointments and hardships, we see these as opportunities to put our glory in the right location. “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” (Galatians 6:9)
May it be true of us that our default setting is to worship and acknowledge God through the phase 2 contradictions. God is always with us even when we struggle and have unanswered questions or unresolved anxieties.
Since God is with us in Phase 1 and we see his profound actions in Phase 3, then we can be confident he is with us in the depths of phase 2.
Resources used:
Podcast: https://thebibleproject.simplecast.fm/75bd0e4f)
Book: The Hinge of Your History, The Phases of Faith by Latayne C. Scott
Book: Read the Bible For A Change by Ray Lubeck; structure of biblical poetry chapter 12
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