Psalm 18 — “A Psalm of David, the servant of Yehovah, who spake unto Yehovah the words of this song in the day that Yehovah delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: and he said,” That’s the introduction to this Psalm.
This is a very personal Psalm. It’s as if David is letting us see behind the door of his life. We’re getting to know him in a way that ordinarily we wouldn’t. The wonderful thing about the Psalms of David is that many of them are so intimately revealing.
Some time back I decided to just read the Psalms that David wrote (and those that many feel were written by him). I had never thought about reading them as a unit. It was so enlightening — almost disturbing actually. I approached the reading of these Psalms with a predisposed perspective about David and came away with an entirely different one. At first I didn’t know how to deal with my new feelings about David.
The thing with David’s Psalms is that he openly and honestly tells the good, the bad, and the ugly about himself. My struggle, though, while reading these Psalms was that I wanted him to remain on the pedestal I had put him. But, after reading them, I realized something very … encouraging. He was human. He was real. He was … just like me!
I tend to think that we are encouraged the most when we, eventually, come to find out that our heroes have warts too. However, at first it’s hard to accept that they are less than we imagined. We want our heroes to be larger than life. The truth is though, ofttimes the image in our mind is one thing and the reality is something quite different. That’s the human equation.
Do you have warts, past or present, in your life? I’m not saying you have to air your dirty laundry to everyone. However, God may bring folks into your life that only you can help. We can comfort others with the comfort wherewith God has comforted us, as Paul states.
But, I have a question. Why is it that when we think of David we don’t tend to focus on his problems and sins? I think the answer lies in the first verse of this Psalm.
“I will love thee, O Yehovah, my strength.”
No matter what David did; no matter what David went through; no matter what others did to him — David’s will was to always love Yehovah. That’s so awesome. The reason David could keep pushing on with life and keep his fellowship intact with God was that he had set his will to actively love his God.
It’s easy to love God when you’re on the mountain top. But how about when your life, at times, matches up with so many of David’s most personal Psalms? What set David apart from most was his will to always, no matter what, love Yehovah his God.
Encouraging? It is to me. I hope it is to you as well.
Let’s make David’s prayer of acknowledgment to Yehovah our willful prayer as well.