472 Praying through Psalm 59: When Enemies Surround You, God Is Your Fortress

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How do you keep singing when enemies surround you and fear closes in on all sides?

Join Jaime on the Praying Christian Women Podcast for a devotional on Psalm 59 — a deeply personal cry for deliverance that moves from terror to triumph, anchored in the unshakeable truth that God is our fortress no matter how thin the walls around us feel.

Jaime walks through David's harrowing reality — surrounded at night by men sent to kill him — and shares a vivid story from her experience at a safari in Kenya's Maasai Mara, where the sound of circling lions in the dark brought this ancient psalm to life in the most visceral way. Sometimes God is the only thing standing between you and what's closing in.

We also explore the surprising tension in David's prayer — asking God not to destroy his enemies outright, but to scatter them as living witnesses of His power, while still crying out for ultimate justice. And through it all, the refrain that carries the whole psalm: as for me, I will sing.

Come ready to name what's surrounding you, find refuge in the God who is your stronghold even when your "tent" feels paper-thin, and make the bold, faith-filled decision to sing His praises before your heart fully catches up — because that's exactly what David did.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio. Hi there, and welcome to another Wednesday Prayer
through this Alms episode of the Praying Christian Women podcast.
I'm Jamie Hampton, and today we are going to pray
through talk about Psalm fifty nine and this is a
prayer for deliverance from enemies. So whereas last week and

(00:25):
Psalm fifty eight we talked about a Psalm where David
kind of prayed for God to bring calamity on his
enemies and disarm them or you know, remove their ability
to inflict pain and punishment, this one is more a
personal refuge. It's more of a you know, protect me,

(00:51):
take me out of this situation, give me refuge and
declaration of God's protection. So, yeah, this is a really
good one. Let's pray before we get into reading God's word. Father,
we just thank you for God's word. We thank you
for David for his honesty for recording these words, these beautiful,

(01:14):
poetic words of faith and strength even in the most dire,
most difficult circumstances. We just pray that you would help
us in our own situations as we see enemies lie
in wait around us, that we would not be fearful,
that we would be confident and sure of whose we

(01:35):
are and who we are because of the blood of Jesus.
Thank you for your protection, Thank you for your love.
Thank you that you are on the throne and at
work no matter what, even when we can't see it,
even when the wicked seem to prosper, even when aros
are being shot at us from all directions. But you

(01:59):
are the God who discis the enemy. You are the
God who shields and protects. And you are the God
who takes what the enemy is intended for evil and
redeems it for your good purposes, for your glory, and
for the good of those who love you, who are
called according to those good purposes. Amen. All right, Let's

(02:30):
read Psalm fifty nine from the Nasby nineteen ninety five,
prayer for deliverance from enemies for the choir director set
to al tash heeth, which is again, do not destroy.
It's that same tune that we heard in Psalm fifty eight.
It's another mick tom of David, which is the type

(02:50):
of poem that it is. And this happened around first
Samuel nineteen eleven describes when this happened. This is when
Saul sent men and they watched the house in order
to kill him very specific instance. So Saul was after David,
and basically David was surrounded by enemies. And an interesting

(03:16):
thing this reminded me of when I went to Kenya
right after college. I worked for a few months and
then I ended up going to Kenya on a mission
trip for two months. And after the mission trip, on
the tail end of it, I took I went on
a safari just to see the country. I went to Kenya.
On the trip, I went to a the Masai Mara

(03:38):
game preserve and we watched some Massi people doing some
of the traditional Massai dances around the fire, kind of
talking about some of the different rituals they had, like
hunting rituals, where one of the dances they did they
would mimic with the ions do when they hunt. And

(04:01):
apparently the lions will get in like kind of a
circle around their prey and they will grunt back and
forth at each other kind of to communicate, and their
grunting gets closer and closer together as they kind of
come in circle in on their prey. They're kind of
communica almost like echo location, I guess, kind of back
and forth, back and forth, like to let each other

(04:22):
know where they are. So they kind of one of
their dances mimicked that sound and the way that they
did that, and it was very it was amazing, It
was it was very neat to see that. But in
the middle of the night in my tent, which by
the way, I went on the budget safari because I
didn't have money for the like, you know, really nice
safari in the building, so I went on the tent

(04:45):
safari where I was in a soft sided tent. Our
guards carried spears, not automatic weapons, to defend us should
there be a problem, and so we were feeling a
little bit vulnerable. But you know, we went to sleep
with my friend Cynthia and me were in the same tent.

(05:07):
So we went to sleep and at some point at
night I woke up and I heard what I would
bet my life on right now as the lion. It
was lions, and they were doing that sound. And so
it could have been someone pulling a very convincing prank

(05:29):
on a very uneducated person from the United States. I
don't know. It sounded like actual lions. It did not
sound like the dance where they kind of mimicked what
the lions were doing. It sounded like the actual lions,
and I woke my tent mate up and I told her,
I think these are I think I hear lions, and

(05:50):
we listened and she agreed, she thought that's what it
was too, and we prayed and we opened Scripture, and like,
I just remember this feeling, and it's the only time
that I physically felt this way that I had enemies
surrounding me, and I mean, what's a tent going to do?
Like we literally discussed what we would do if we

(06:13):
heard them getting closer because our beds had like a
hollow side. We had two like kind of caught things,
but they had a wooden frame, and so we looked.
We figured out that we could hide under the wooden
frame and be protected. Who knows what was under the
wooden frame. But at that point, my fear of insects
or whatever, like spiders totally wasn't even an issue when

(06:35):
I'm thinking of saving my life. So we really felt
kind of surrounded by enemies. So I'm just taking that
mindset of just pure terror and fear of the unknown,
and I'm putting myself in David's situation, and he's saying,
deliver me from my enemies. Oh my God, set me

(06:56):
securely on high, away from those who rise up against me.
Deliver me from those who do iniquity, and save me
from men of bloodshed. For behold, they have set an
ambush for my life. Fierce men launch an attack against me.
Not for my transgression, nor for my sin, o Lord,
for no guilt of mine. They run and set themselves
against me. Arouse yourself up to help me. And see you,

(07:21):
o Lord, God of Hosts, the God of Israel, awake
to punish all the nations. Do not be gracious to
any who are treacherous in iniquity. Selah. They return at evening.
They howl like a dog, or in my case, they
grunt like a lion, and go around the city. Behold,
they belch forth with their mouth. Swords are in their lips,

(07:45):
For they say, who hears? But you, o Lord, laugh
at them, You scoff at all the nations because of
his strength. Some ancient versions read my strength. Because of
my strength, I will watch for you. For God is
my strong hold. My God, and his loving kindness will
meet me. God will let me look triumphantly upon my foes.

(08:07):
Do not slay them, or my people will forget. Scatter
them by your power, and bring them down, O Lord,
our shield, on account of the sin of their mouth
and the words of their lips. Let them even be
caught in their pride, and on account of curses and
lies which they utter. Destroy them in wrath, Destroy them
that they may be no more, that men may know

(08:29):
that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the earth, saylah.
They return at evening. They howl like a dog and
go around the city. They wander about for food and
growl if they are not satisfied. But as for me,
I shall sing of your strength. Yes, I shall joyfully
sing of your loving kindness in the morning, for you

(08:50):
have been my stronghold and a refuge in the day
of my distress. Oh, my strength, I will sing praises
to you, for God is my stronghold, the God who
shows me loving kindness. So this is more of a psalm.
I mean, there's a little bit of imprecatory leanings here
where he's talking about two different things. First, he says,

(09:12):
don't kill them, don't put them to death, scatter them
so they will bear testimony of your greatness and their defeat.
But then later he talks about destroy them so that
they will be no more that men may know that
God rules. In Jacob to the Ends of the Earth,

(09:32):
he talks a lot about them returning in the evening howling,
and it talks about them, you know, like kind of
foraging for food, and then they come and they circle around.
I wonder if this kind of happened, if they surrounded
him at night, so he didn't try to escape in
the nighttime or something, but he was being oppressed by enemies.

(09:52):
And as usual, David begins with stating his situation. He
talks about how he is guiltless in terms of why
they're coming after him. Obviously he's a sinful human, but
he hasn't done anything to reap the consequences of this
oppression and persecution. And I just wonder, in your life

(10:16):
right now, is there a situation where you know, if
you're feeling surrounded, maybe you're facing spiritual opposition, and it's
for nothing bad that you've done that it's come upon you.
It's maybe even something good that you've done. Maybe you're
making progress in your relationship with God, maybe you're embarking
on a new ministry, or maybe you're doing something where

(10:38):
you just feel like you're being a target and you've
got targets on your back. Or maybe it's a situation
where you're being persecuted in some way for your faith
or just for no good reason. And if that's the case,
I think we can look at this and just glean hope.

(10:58):
Because David is literally being surrounded by enemies who want
to take his life, and yet he has the presence
of mind and the faith to say, as for me,
even though all of this is going on, he talks
about them cursing and lying and speaking lies against him

(11:20):
and sitting and lying in wait to destroy him literally bodily.
But as for me, I will sing of your strength.
And we know David was a musical person because the
Bible talks about how wasn't it the liar that he played?
He played an instrument to soothe Saul when they were
on good terms. He sang, I'm guessing because he was

(11:43):
a composer of music, and probably saying so, but as
for me, I will sing of your strength. Yes, I
shall joyfully sing of your loving kindness in the morning.
So that's after waiting all night, as they surrounded him
in the evening like jack bulls, and even though I'm
guessing he probably didn't sleep at night. He would sing

(12:05):
of your loving kindness in the morning, for you have
been my stronghold and a refuge in the day of
my distress. He was not physically in a place of refuge.
They could have invaded, They could have come in to
wherever it was that he was. They were surrounding him
in the house. They were watching him in order to
kill him. But God is this fortress. So when I

(12:28):
was in my tent with the lion sounds around me,
I would have loved to have had like a huge
platform or fortress to be in. I would have loved
not to have been on the budget safari. I can't
tell you how many times I thought, why didn't I
just ask for money from my parents to go on
the more expensive safari so I could be by like

(12:48):
what I wouldn't give for a door and a building.
I really did feel that way. But David just says,
you have been my stronghold. And that night God was
my strong We cried out to him. He was our
only protection and a refuge in the day of my distress.
Oh my strength, I will sing praises to you, for

(13:10):
God is my stronghold, the God who shows me loving kindness,
and my prayer for you if you are finding yourself
in a situation where you're being oppressed or persecuted, or
lied about, or feel like you have enemies surrounding you,
my prayer is that you will have the strength and
just the ability to sing God's praises. I think sometimes

(13:33):
we have to start singing before our heart catches up
and before our mind catches up. We have to make
the conscious decision to sing His praises for me personally,
because I love music, I feel like singing, actually literally
singing his praises, putting on praise and worship music and
just belting it out, or reading psalms and speaking the

(13:55):
words out loud, or just speaking truth. God. Even though
I'm in this position, you are good. You are still
on the throne. Even if you can't give thanks for
anything in your circumstances, you can thank God for being
who he is, and you can declare you are my stronghold.
You are my fortress. Even though I have these flimsy

(14:17):
tent panels that couldn't withstand the jaws and the talons
of a lion, You are my fortress and my stronghold.
Thank you. I declare it is truth. Let it be so.
Let's pray, Father God. We just declare that you are
our fortress and our stronghold. When we are surrounded by enemies,

(14:41):
when people literally lie in wait to catch us, to
destroy us, to set traps for us, to speak lies
against us, to sabotage our good plans, to turn people
against us. No matter what, you are our stronghold and
our fortress, and you show us loving kindness, Oh my strength,

(15:04):
I sing praises to you today. We will sing of
your goodness and your love and your mercy. We will
declare you as the King of kings and the Lord
of lords, our present help in time of trouble, the
one who lifts us up out of the myrie pit
and sets our feet on solid ground, our fortress, our stronghold,

(15:25):
in times of trouble, our rescue. You are on the
throne in the midst of all of it. And we
thank you for it. God, Thank you. Amen. We'd like
to take just a quick second to thank the team
at life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find

(15:47):
dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've
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