Finding a safe place for the emotions that threaten to overwhelm us
With God, trust falls are a sure thing. He’ll never let us down when we throw ourselves on Him.
He can handle anything we dish out. Nothing catches Him off guard.
When anger, hurt, and pain overwhelm us and threaten to drown us, that’s the precise time we need to cast our cares upon Him, cast our burdens upon Him, and literally throw ourselves on Him.
Psalm 55:22 says:
“Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.”
New Living Translation
This Isn’t a Calm Psalm
So, what’s going on in this Psalm?
Taken out of context, you might think this is a declarative, instructional Psalm where David is using song and music to teach those under him.
But you’d be wrong!
Much of Psalm 55 is David pouring out his pain, fear, frustration, and anger before the Lord. He’s being utterly transparent before the God he knows is able to handle whatever he has to say.
David has been betrayed by somebody very close to him. He isn’t mildly upset about it either.
He’s angry. He’s hurting. He’s frightened. He wants his enemies to stumble and be crushed.
He is really ticked!
But David pours all of that out to the One he knows can take it.
David Knew Where to Take His Anger
There was something important happening in all that transparency and honesty that David carried.
He wasn’t hiding his anger from God. He wasn’t cleaning up his emotions before coming into God’s presence. No, David brought the whole mess with him.
And in the middle of pouring everything out, David reminds himself where his safety is:
“Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.”
There’s something called a trust fall, where you let go and fall backward, trusting that whoever is behind you will catch you.
That’s what I see happening here.
David not only gives his burdens to the Lord; he throws himself upon the Lord, knowing that God will catch him.
A Safe Place to Fall
When anger and hurt and pain overwhelm us and threaten to drown us, that’s precisely when we need to cast our cares upon Him and cast our burdens upon Him.
Sometimes we need to throw ourselves on Him.
We can trust Him with the anger. We can trust Him with the hurt. We can trust Him with the things we’re thinking that perhaps shouldn’t come out of our mouths anywhere else.
God can handle our honesty.
And sometimes throwing ourselves on Him is exactly what keeps us safe from doing some really stupid things in that moment of an adrenaline rush.
Before our anger decides what we’re going to do next, we can take it to the One who is strong enough to hold both us and everything we’re carrying.
©2026 Katherine Walden
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