Please read Psalm 55 (23 verses)

The psalmist is very much affected by the attitudes and bad feeling towards him from other people around him. It seems like the whole world is against him and it is affecting him deeply. He is in the grip of mind illness with extreme anxiety and depression. He cannot rest, for the horror of treachery and oppression are assaulting his mind. He wishes to get away from it and be at peace, far away into the wilderness where no one else goes. He suffers fearfulness and trembling and his mind is constructing horrors our of the paranoia that has gripped him. This Psalm is so realistic in its expression of mind illness and the attending physical suffering that accompanies it, that it is a source of great comfort for many who suffer.

The state of the social settling is severe. It is not an enemy that is attacking him, but those who are suppose to be close to him. It is friends who once walked with him and are his equal. He is appalled at their treatment of him as a person and calls down the justice of God on the situation. He says he will find consolation by calling on the Lord, evening, morning and noon, and keep himself in the love of his only Saviour. The Lord will give him peace from the battle that is going on around him and in his psyche. He again accuses his so-called companions of slander and treason against him and calls them “blood thirsty and deceitful.” Their words are smooth and slippery and treasonous, even when their outward demeanour is calm. These people once seemed to care and go with him to the house of God to worship, but they have turned and are now maliciously accusing him and bringing him down into the storm of oppressive illness.

The psalmist will now cast his burden on the Lord, for only the Lord can deal with this situation and deliver him from the physical threat of former friends, and the oppression in his mind. He reiterates his faith…

“I will trust in you.”