Kingdom Seekers Circle

Emotional Meditation—by Micah Siemens

This is where the psalm opens: not with peace, not with still waters, not with quiet trust—but with a cry for defense. A cry you almost feel in your ribs. David isn’t being dramatic. He’s not trying to sound spiritual. He’s in a fight he didn’t start, facing enemies he didn’t provoke, and the injustice is burning through him.

And if you’ve ever been blindsided—spiritually, emotionally, relationally—this psalm feels familiar. It names that feeling you rarely say out loud:

“Lord, I need You to step in because I can’t carry this.”

David asks God to rise up with shield and spear, to stand between him and what wants to destroy him. And you know this instinct too. That deep, hidden place where you want God not just as comfort but as defender—the One who sees the unfairness, the betrayal, the setups from the enemy, and says, “Enough.”

There’s something unfiltered in David’s prayer. It’s the raw kind of honesty you’ve slowly learned to bring to God: the emotions that feel too intense, the anger that feels too sharp, the sadness that feels too heavy, the desire for justice that feels too bold. Psalm 35 gives you permission to pray like that. Then David says something that feels even more vulnerable: “Let them be like chaff before the wind.” It’s not revenge he’s after—it’s release. He wants the schemes against him to dissolve in God’s presence. To lose weight. To lose substance. To lose the power they’ve held over his soul.

There’s liberation in that image. A reminder that God has the power to turn the heaviest burdens into dust with a word.

But the part that stings—the part you feel most deeply—is when David says he’s being attacked “without cause.” It’s that lonely kind of pain where you can’t explain yourself, where your motives are misunderstood, where false accusations echo louder than your truth. You know that ache: wanting to be seen rightly, wanting your heart to be recognized for what it actually is.

And in that ache, David does the only thing he can: he throws himself into the arms of the One who knows him perfectly.

The psalm shifts around verse 9—the moment where trust starts rising again. David can already see himself rejoicing in God’s deliverance even before anything has changed. That’s the heart of this psalm: the stubborn belief that God will defend you not because you’re strong, but because He’s faithful.

There’s something deeply comforting about that. It’s not that the fight feels fair—it doesn’t. It’s not that the enemies suddenly disappear—they don’t. It’s that God steps into the story and refuses to leave you alone in the injustice.

This psalm is for the moments when life feels like it’s closing in, when arrows are flying from places you didn’t expect, and the ground feels unstable. It’s for when you feel ambushed. Misread. Targeted. Worn down. But it’s also for the moments when trust rises anyway—when you lift your eyes and remember that God is still your defender, your advocate, and your justice.

• 🌱 Roots or Dust? A Column on Psalm 1
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