Hold the Line: Fear and Faithfulness in an Age of Social Pressure

It’s not unusual for Texas to make national headlines. Last fall, news reports featured my state governor’s efforts to crack down on cities and counties with rainbow crosswalks, leaving each with the decision either to remove ideological messaging or risk losing millions in state funding. Most have since paved over the roads and repainted sidewalks, but the divisions they represent remain etched across neighborhoods, friend groups, and families.

Every June, those divisions become a little more visible. A few more friends post selfies from Pride parades. A few more publicly declare themselves LGBTQ+ allies. And a few more share captions calling out people and organizations for their lack of acceptance and love. Sometimes it feels surprising, especially when some of the loudest voices belong to people who once seemed firmly committed to other convictions. But as the years pass, the pattern has become more familiar. 

Of course, those aren’t the only divisions among us. Everywhere we turn—politically, culturally, even generationally—it seems new lines are being drawn, separating people who once stood side by side. 

As those lines become more defined, many of us will increasingly face difficult choices to stand apart or fit in—and to make it clear which side we’re on. For most people, the underlying fear accompanying such a choice is stronger than they realize. We fear that our views—beliefs that have historically been orthodox but are now increasingly considered radical, hateful, outdated, or intolerant—will leave us isolated from those we care about most and turn friends into enemies. We’re afraid that if we hold the line on what we believe God’s Word says is true, we’ll be misunderstood and even maligned, abandoned, and left alone.

David knew what it was like to live under far greater pressure. In the Old Testament, he faced threats that went well beyond social rejection; his enemies sought his life, and there were seasons when he was forced to flee, hide, and live as an outcast. While our circumstances are not the same, the fears that accompany them are not entirely foreign to us. We too can know what it’s like to feel outnumbered, misunderstood, and uncertain about what faithfulness might cost.

As women living in a world that is so different from his, it can be tempting to leave David’s struggles in the muted colors of history—among kings and armies, caves and battlefields. Yet the deeper we look, the more familiar his experience becomes. In Psalm 56, David shows us that no matter the pressures surrounding us, faith triumphs over fear. 

When Fear Closes In 

Before we get to Psalm 56, turn back a page. At the end of Psalm 55, David urges others to follow his example in relying on the Lord.¹ He writes,

Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never allow the righteous to be shaken. (v. 22)

In the following psalm, David shares a time when he did exactly that. When Psalm 56 begins, he has fled from Saul to Gath, the hometown of Goliath (1 Sam. 21:10). To have made this move, one commentator notes, took “the courage of despair; it measured David’s estimate of his standing with his people. And now this has failed, and he is doubly encircled.”²

His prayer begins the way many others do, immediately calling out to the Lord. In Psalm 4:1, David prays, “You freed me from affliction; be gracious to me and hear my prayer.” In Psalm 6:2, he says, “Be gracious to me, LORD, for I am weak,” and in Psalm 51:1, “Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love.” Each request flows out of his relationship with the Lord. He realizes he doesn’t deserve God’s favor, but he knows God’s heart. 

Be gracious to me, God, for a man is trampling me;
he fights and oppresses me all day long.
My adversaries trample me all day,
for many arrogantly fight against me. (Psalm 56:1–2)

Twice David says his enemies are trampling him and fighting against him. “The unremitting pressure is the worst part of the ordeal. It was the first thing David emphasized: all day long . . . all day long.”³ He needs “a merciful response from God because of the hounding, slanderous attacks of enemies.”⁴ They attack “arrogantly” (CSB) and “proudly” (ESV), but David’s fear humbles him.

He uses the word “afraid” three different times in this short psalm (vv. 3, 4, and 11). He admits that he’s scared. He’s not writing and praying from a place where difficult circumstances no longer affect him or where criticism, betrayal, or opposition no longer makes his heart race. But the psalm keeps moving, shifting from himself to the character of God as he reminds himself of God’s Word and His trustworthy character.

When I am afraid,
I will trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me? (vv. 3–4)

What could mere mortals do to him? They could wound him. They could slander him. They could make his life miserable. But at the end of the day, they were still only mortals. 

The same is true for us. People can question our motives, damage our reputations, or distance themselves from us. They may succeed in making life more difficult. Yet for all the influence they seem to wield, their power is limited. Human opposition, however painful, will never outweigh divine sovereignty. 

That’s why David can move from fear to trust. His circumstances have not changed, but his perspective has. He knows his adversaries are part of the human realm: “They can still do much to hurt God’s servant, as the next verses will confirm; but nothing to defeat him.”⁵

They twist my words all day long;
all their thoughts against me are evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk,
they watch my steps
while they wait to take my life.
Will they escape in spite of such sin?
God, bring down the nations in wrath. (vv. 5–7)

Jesus Himself faced relentless opposition. We tend to focus more attention on His physical suffering at the cross, but in the years leading up to it, He endured the exhausting pressure of constant hostility, criticism, and scrutiny. Luke 11:53 records that “the scribes and the Pharisees began to oppose him fiercely and to cross-examine him about many things.” Nearly everywhere He went, people were waiting to challenge His words, question His motives, twist His statements, and trap Him in a mistake. 

When we’re misunderstood, we often become defensive and discouraged. We replay conversations in our minds, trying to justify ourselves, or we worry about what others will think of us. But when Jesus was tested, He entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly. 

In Matthew 10:29, Jesus said, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent.” Jesus didn’t merely say this to others; He believed it. He lived in the confidence that nothing happened outside His Father’s sovereign care, which means every accusation, every insult, and even every nail driven into His hands passed through the Father’s hands first. 

Jesus would have been familiar with David’s words. Imagine Him praying these words to His Father in moments when He felt the frailty of His human condition and needed comfort and courage:

You yourself have recorded my wanderings.
Put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call.
This I know: God is for me. (Psalm 56:8–9) 

In verse 1, David describes his attacker oppressing him, using a word that can mean “to gasp” or “pant after.”⁶ Imagine the hot breath of his enemy on his neck as he closed in. Yet in verse 8, God is closer than the enemy threatening him. David’s enemies tracked his movements to destroy him, but God recorded his wanderings as a way of caring for him. While his enemies watched for any sign of weakness, God noticed his tears and drew near with compassion.

Centuries later, the apostle Paul echoed David’s words, saying, “What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8:31, emphasis added). This is still the believer’s triumph. 

In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can mere humans do to me? (Psalm 56:10–11)

Nothing. That’s the rhetorical answer to the question David repeats. His confidence looked beyond the deliverance of his present situation to what he ultimately longed for: 

I am obligated by vows to you, God;
I will make my thanksgiving sacrifices to you.
For you rescued me from death,
even my feet from stumbling,
to walk before God in the light of life. (vv. 12–13)

The word walk is the same verb used in Genesis 3:8, when the Lord walked “in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.” “This signifies qualitative ideal life, for which the tree of life was meant to seal man forever and one day will (Rev. 22:2).”⁷ It’s possible because of Jesus. Psalm 56 points beyond David’s experience to ours in Christ. 

As long as we walk on this earth, we’ll still experience pressure and fear. But because Jesus has conquered sin and death, we can face them with even greater confidence than David: “This I know: God is for me.” 

Hold the Line

Here’s what this means for today: it’s okay to admit you’re afraid. David admitted his fear three times in thirteen verses—not as a failure of faith but as an opportunity to exercise it. If there are areas where the Lord is calling you to step forward and you know opposition may follow, begin by identifying your feelings, especially those that tempt you to remain silent or waver in what you know is right. 

Are you afraid of being rejected? Of losing a friendship? Of being labeled intolerant, judgmental, or unloving? Name those fears before the Lord, knowing that Christ Himself has gone before you. He’s not asking you to walk a path He has never walked Himself. 

Then do as David did. As you admit your feelings and your fears to the Lord, don’t stop there. David didn’t say, “I was afraid,” but, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” He expected fear to come, but he refused to let it have the final word. Fear made his enemies seem big, but faith and fixing his eyes on truth reminded him that God was bigger. 

Fear will always magnify the opinions of others, convincing us that standing for truth is too high a price to pay. But faith reminds us that the people whose opinions seem so large today are only part of a passing moment, while the God who calls us to obedience reigns forever. 

Hold the line. It may feel like everyone else has crossed it, but this you can know: God is for you. He will sustain you through every fear, tear, and trial until you walk before Him in the light of life.

¹ Michael A. Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham, eds., “Psalms,” in The Moody Bible Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014), 807.

² Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 15, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 220.

³ Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 221.

⁴ Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–100, vol. 20, Word Biblical Commentary(Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 69.

⁵ Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 221.

⁶ Tate, Psalms 51–100, 66.

⁷ Rydelnik and Vanlaningham, “Psalms,” 808.