Psalm 3:1-5 is now available on all streaming platforms!

THE VERSE

[1] O LORD, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
[2] many are saying of my soul,
“There is no salvation for him in God.”

[3] But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
[4] I cried aloud to the LORD,
and he answered me from his holy hill.

[5] I lay down and slept;
I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.

Here in Psalm 3, we find David’s first words in the Psalter, and what a prayer it is! In this psalm of personal lament and grief, we hear from the depths of David’s heart an honest cry to God in the midst of a massive and deep betrayal by his own son Absalom… Could you imagine everything running through his mind while trying to escape? While David names his desperate reality with great vulnerability, he also names his spiritual reality in God: that God is his shield, his glory, and the lifter of his head. Where his own son and others weren’t attentive to David’s cry, God was! While the reality of many foes was pressing on his heart, these other realities about who God was allowed him to rest his head and sleep, all while trusting that ultimately God was sustaining him at the end of the day.

What about you? What foes are you experiencing in your life today? How might the reality of God being your shield, glory, and lifter of your head affect you? Spend some time listening, singing, and praying along with the song.

The Song + The Artist

Nick Chambers is a singer-songwriter who lives in Atlanta, GA. This song was written, produced, and recorded by Nick Chambers. Mixed by Latifah Alattas. Mastered by Dave Wilton.

We asked Nick about what drew him into this particular psalm, and this is what he shared:

These are the first words of straightforward prayer in the Psalms. After two chapters of observations, questions, and warnings, the psalmist now turns directly to God: “O Lord, how many are my foes!” This psalm is also traditionally associated with a story from the life of David, when he is on the run from his own usurper son. Right at the beginning of this expansive collection of prayers, we are hurled into the story late, trying to keep up.
We never pray from nowhere. We are always surrounded, always on the way. We are trying to sleep knowing what waits for us in the morning. It is this suddenness and “storiedness” of Psalm 3 that drew me to work on this song. I could hear both its loneliness and its hope and wanted to try to find that voice.