Psalm 55: When Anxiety Takes Over

Anxiety doesn’t always hit like a lightning bolt. Sometimes it’s a slow flood, a thousand small worries that stack up until you feel paralyzed, short of breath, and desperate to escape. That’s why Psalm 55 is such a gift. Pastor Brandon reads David’s words out loud and doesn’t rush past the honesty: a pounding heart, trembling hands, and the thought, “If I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and rest.”

We also talk about how anxiety gets sharper when the pain is personal. David isn’t only facing enemies “out there” he’s dealing with betrayal from someone close, the kind of relational stress that makes you want to isolate. If you’ve ever felt like you can’t even explain what’s wrong because it’s all blended into one heavy cloud, you’re not alone, and you’re not disqualified from loving God.

The practical takeaway is simple and challenging: “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you.” We unpack what it looks like to name the burden in prayer, hand God the fear of it, and then leave the results with Him, not taking it back through constant rumination. There’s room here for process, daily repetition, and wise support, including the value of counseling that aligns with a biblical worldview.

If you need a Christian framework for anxiety, a Psalm 55 devotional, or a prayer that helps you take the next step, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who’s carrying too much, and leave a five-star review so more people can find the encouragement.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And Daily Bible Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

Why Anxiety Feels Everywhere Today

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Psalm chapter 55, and today's title is When Anxiety Takes Over. When anxiety takes over. I don't know about you, but it seems as though someone, someone wrote a book one time and they called this generation alive today as the anxious generation. I don't know about you, but I think that's true. I think that every generation has to deal with levels of anxiety and different things. And I can't imagine what it must have been like to live during the time of World War II, just coming out of the Great Depression and into a world war. Every generation has its anxiety. I think one of the difficult things about this generation is in past generations, anxieties mostly had an aim: world war, Great Depression, those kinds of things. But today it seems like there's a thousand little things that create anxiety. And it's those thousand little things that slowly become overwhelming. And what do we do when anxiety becomes a low-level thing that we have to manage? And all of a sudden it becomes overflowing and we don't know what to do. Well, if that's ever been you and you've ever become overwhelmed by anxiety, God's word understands. And God has a way of teaching us how to be honest, how to process, and what to do when anxiety takes over. So if that's ever been you, today's chapter is for you. So if you Bibles, got your Bible journals out. We're going to jump into what to do with anxiety in just a moment. But make sure before that, don't be anxious. Make sure you subscribe, like, and share this YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help. And make sure you're going to the Bible breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people doing a wonderful job. And we get all that information by going to thebibelbreakdown.com because the more we dig, the more we find. Well, if you've been with us, one of the places that we can dig deeply and find so much is the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms, we're calling it the soundtrack for life because it is a collection of the greatest hits of the people of God from the time of Moses all the way to the time of Malachi, as they are writing songs about how they're processing through life. And as we've been saying in the previous podcast, it really helps us to process all different kinds of things. Things such as, you know, how to celebrate with God, how to be mad with God, how to, how to conduct warfare with God, how to take road trips with God. But have you ever thought about what do you do when you're feeling anxiety?

Psalms As A Guide For Emotions

SPEAKER_01 2:59

What do you do when you want to isolate from everybody else? I talked to a friend of mine one time, and he said that his life had become a season of unresolved problems to a point that he didn't know what he was going to do, didn't know what he was going to do until one day he woke up in the morning and he couldn't get out of bed. He was so paralyzed that he didn't know what to do. And he said, honestly, I couldn't even tell you what the problem was because there were so many problems that had gotten so big that it just coalesced into one big just blob of anxiety. And he said, when he said, when his spouse asked him what was wrong, he said he couldn't tell her, only that he couldn't hardly breathe. He was having a panic attack. And he was just overwhelmed with pressure. Well, if that's you, can I tell you? The Bible calls David a man who is after God's own heart. That he was pursuing God with everything that he had, that he was he was after God. And David dealt with anxiety. David dealt with a season when he didn't know what to do. And I say that to give you hope, to say that if you have ever dealt with anxiety, that doesn't mean that you don't love God. It means it's time to turn to God. So let's read

Psalm 55 Read Aloud And Real Talk

SPEAKER_01 4:18

this together. Psalm 55, verse 1 says this listen to my prayer, O God. Don't ignore my cry for help. Please listen and answer me, for I am overwhelmed by my troubles. My enemies shout at me, making loud and wicked threats. They bring trouble on me and angry, angrily hunt me down. My heart pounds in my chest. The terror of death assaults me. Fear and trembling overwhelm me, and I cannot stop shaking. Oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and rest. I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness. Interlude, which means let the band play. And so David offers us a moment to say, hey, I'm being honest. And think about this for a second. This was written to be saying before the assembled people. So in other words, he's being honest. He's saying, even as your king, I deal with moments of just not knowing what to do, just wanting to run away from all of it. Ever felt that way? Let's keep reading. Verse 8. How quickly I would escape far from the wild storm of hatred. Confuse them, Lord, and frustrate their plans, for I see violence and conflict in the city. Its walls are patrolled day and night against invaders. But the real danger is wickedness within the city. Everything is falling apart. Threats and cheating are rampant in the streets. It is not my an enemy who taunts me that I could bear. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me. I could have hidden from them. Instead, it is you, my equal, my companion and close friend. What good fellowship we once enjoyed. And we walk together in the house of God. Let death stalk my enemies, and let the grave swallow them alive, for evil makes its home within them. But I will call on God and the Lord will rescue me. Morning, noon, and night I will cry out in my distress, and the Lord hears my voice. He ransoms me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me. Though many still oppose me, God, who has ruled forever, will hear me and humble them. Interlude, which means let the band play. So David starts with saying, I'm I'm in a rough spot. Then he says, It's not just enemies on the outside, but I don't even feel like I can go to my friends. My friends are part of the problem. But then he says, But when I turn to you, O God, you hear me, you see me, and you know me. All right, let's speak back up again. He says, For my enemies refuse to change their ways, and they do not fear God. As for my companion, he betrayed his friends and he broke his promises. His words are as smooth as butter, but his heart is a war. His words are as soothing as lotion, but underneath are daggers. Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. But you, O God, will send the wicked down to the pit of destruction. Murderers and liars will die young, but I am trusting you to save me. So David is being very honest here. He's talking about just shaking, just being so upset and so just ah. And he's and he's saying, if you've ever been like this when David is saying there's there's so many terrible things going on the outside, but even those who are supposed to be close to me don't get it. They're part of the problem. The ones that are supposed to be helpful to me, they're they're creating a lot of the problem by itself. And he says, but I will call on God and God will hear me and God will rescue me. And then he says, Here's the here's the prescription from from King David, who has dealt with so many different things. What helped him get up out of the bed, what helped him be able to move forward, and maybe this is for you today. He says

Give The Burden And Leave It

SPEAKER_01 8:20

this in verse 22. He says, Here's my prescription. When I feel so much anxiety and fear, I don't know what to do. He says this, give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. He says, Do three things. Give your burdens to the Lord, trust him to take care of you, and trust him to lead the way. Give them to the Lord. That doesn't mean give them and then give and then take them back. There was this old hymn we used to sing that says, give your burdens to the Lord and leave them there. Many times the reason why prayer doesn't work for people. I've I've talked to so many people say, Pastor, I have so much anxiety. One of my first questions is, is are you talking to God about it? Now, don't get it twisted. There's another question eventually that comes is, are you seeing a counselor who can help you see your life through a biblical worldview, right? The first question is, are you praying and talking to God about it? Of course I am, of course I am, but it doesn't work. Doesn't work. Okay, well then I ask, well, what does that prayer look like? Well, I tell God that I'm in trouble. And I said, Do you name it? You name your problems. Of course I do. Then what do you do? Well, then I just I keep thinking about it. It's like, well, that's part of the problem. Is you that doesn't mean you ignore them. They're still there, but you give the fear of it to the Lord. You, you give your burden to the Lord, and then you leave it there. God, I trust you with it. Now it doesn't mean that I'm going to ignore the reality. It's gonna say, I am going to give the results of it to you. I'm gonna do the best I can and I'm gonna trust you with the results. So now I'm not offering, I'm not operating from a position where I got to figure all this out. I'm operating from a position where God is going to help me figure this out. I am going to give my burdens to the Lord. I'm gonna trust Him to take care of me, and I am gonna trust Him to lead the way. And so now I am not looking at the future with fear, I'm looking at the future with faith because I trust

A Daily Next Step And Prayer

SPEAKER_01 10:18

in the Lord. Here's my question for you, and we're gonna pray today. If you're dealing with just life-altering, panic-inducing, paralyzing anxiety, when is the last time you called it out by name to the Lord and then you left the results of it with him. And you got up and you said, God, today, not forever, but for today. And then tomorrow I'm gonna pray the same thing. Today, I'm gonna leave the fear of those burdens with you. I'm gonna trust you, and I'm gonna take a next step. Sometimes the next step is the only right step, and you trust the Lord. Now, that is so easy to say, isn't it? So hard to do. That's why it's a daily thing, and that's why it was so important that the Holy Spirit inspired David to put this in here to say, hey, listen, this is hard. You're gonna have to read this over and over and over again to be honest, to say what the problem is, and then say, God, I'm gonna give it to you. I'm gonna trust you with this burden, and then I'm gonna take the next step, and I'm gonna trust that every next step, you're gonna be there with me. And when you do that and you start trusting in the Lord, watch what happens. One step at a time can feel so slow until you look back behind you and realize we've come a long way. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, God, that you see us and that you know us. Lord, you're not offended by the anxiety we feel. If you were ever offended, it's because only that we don't turn it over to you. Because you long for us to have peace. Lord, I pray you will help us to have the wisdom to realize that because we turn it over to you doesn't mean that it's always fixed in the moment. Sometimes that's a process, but the fear of it is taken away because the burden now belongs to you. I pray that you will help us to realize that your word says you have not given us a spirit of fear and intimidation, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. We celebrate and we receive that promise today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Anyway, what God's word says in Psalm 34, verse 1 say it with me, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Every day is a new opportunity to give God praise. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Psalm chapter 56.