Psalm 27: Fear, Abandonment, and the God Who Receives Us

Every Psalm is unique, even though there is, of course, overlap in various ways. Psalm 27 is centered around the concept of fear. It shows different ways in which God upholds us through our fears.

David speaks of one of the deepest fears that we experience, which is the fear of being abandoned. Since Freud, there has been a strong tendency in psychology to emphasize the profound effect that our relationships with our parents have on us, and that emphasis has been developed further through attachment theory and in other ways. And it is certainly true that experiences of abandonment, rejection, or emotional disconnection in our early years can have profoundly negative effects. They contribute to anxiety, depression, addictions, struggles with anger, relationship difficulties, personality disorders, and dissociative identity disorder. In fact, many of the things that eventually lead people into counseling have some connection with feelings of loneliness, rejection, or abandonment from childhood.

But what David expresses in this Psalm is that there is something even deeper than the pain of being rejected by our parents: the fear of being forsaken by God. He pleads with the Lord, “Do not reject me or forsake me,” and then adds, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.”

David is not minimizing the pain of being forsaken by a father or mother. He chooses that example precisely because it represents one of the deepest forms of human rejection. But even there, he recognizes that there is a relationship more fundamental than every human relationship. His deepest security is not that no person will ever abandon him, but that the Lord will receive him.

That brings us naturally to the opening words of the Psalm: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?” Those words summarize much of what is to come.

The Lord is my light. His Word is in me. As John 1:4 puts it, the Word of God is the light of men; it is that by which we see. “The eye is the lamp of the body,” Christ says. Light is that by which we see, and our eyes are that through which we see. The light within us refers to the degree of faith, wisdom, and understanding that we have gained through the Word of God, which can help sustain us in difficult times. That Word is the light of men, it is the source of life, it is only through that Word that our deepest needs are satisfied.

In verses 2 and 3, David finds strength in reflection on what God has done in the past; the light, the truth, is sustaining him. David thinks back to times when evildoers came against him and his enemies surrounded him, and yet it was they who stumbled and fell. Because of that, he can say that even if an army encamps against him, his heart will not fear, and even if war rises against him, he will remain confident.

David reflects on how the Lord has been there with him in past struggles, and from that he can conclude that God will be there with him in present and future struggles. God has shown himself to be faithful, and that gives David confidence that the Lord will continue to be faithful.

We see something similar in verse 13. David says that he would have lost heart if he had not believed that he would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. His despair is held at bay by the measure of faith and understanding that he has. What he believes about God keeps him from being completely overcome by what he sees happening around him.

Of course, we all know that fears can be overwhelming. They can come over us like a wave. I remember when I was 16 years old and trying to ride waves in California. I got pulled under the water by a strong current, only to come to the surface and get thrown under again by another wave. At that moment, I wasn’t able to think too clearly about anything except trying to get free from those waves.

Fear can be like that. It can overwhelm our ability to think clearly. At those moments, what we have already learned about the Lord matters. The faith, wisdom, and understanding that have grown in us through his Word help us to see when fear makes it difficult to see.

Verses 4–5, 8, and 11 begin to put all of this together. In verse 4, David says that there is one thing above everything else that he asks of the Lord and seeks after: that he might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and seek him in his temple. Then in verse 5 he says that, in the day of trouble, the Lord will keep him safe, hide him in his dwelling, and set him high upon a rock.

His response to fear is not simply to try harder not to be afraid. His response is to seek the Lord.

That becomes even clearer in verse 8. David hears the call, “Seek my face,” and responds, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” Then in verse 11, surrounded by enemies, he asks the Lord to teach him his way and lead him in a straight path.

These verses bring together the idea of God as my light with the idea of God as my salvation.

God as my light brings his Word into my life. He brings the joy of knowing the Lord, wisdom to know how to live my life, and wisdom to know how to face the challenges that come. David does not simply ask God to remove his enemies. He asks God to teach him his way. He wants to know the Lord, dwell with the Lord, and learn how the Lord would have him walk.

And God is my salvation. He is the one who brings life where there was death, the one who transforms me by the renewing of my mind. But that transformation does not happen apart from our seeking the Lord earnestly day by day because we long to know him and to dwell with him.

The first part of salvation, justification and the forgiveness of our sins, is the Lord’s work alone. We do not pay the price for our own sins. Christ does that work in our place, paying for our sins. But the process of growth comes through earnestly seeking him.

As Hebrews 11:6 says, without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

So faith in the Lord involves seeking him earnestly because our desire is to dwell with him. But our desire to dwell with him may still be mixed with other desires based on our old way of thinking. It takes time for the transformation of our thinking to occur.

Psalm 27 shows David in that process. He knows what is true about the Lord. He remembers what the Lord has done for him. He acknowledges the very real possibility of enemies, rejection, and abandonment. He does not pretend that there is nothing to fear. Instead, in the middle of those fears, he seeks the Lord.

And perhaps that is one of the most important lessons of the Psalm. Our confidence is not based on reaching the point where nothing frightens us. It is based on increasingly knowing the One whom we seek in the midst of our fears. Even if those closest to us forsake us, the Lord will receive us. Even when we cannot see clearly, the Lord is our light. And when we feel surrounded by circumstances that seem stronger than we are, the Lord is our salvation.