When I come to any new section in scripture I prefer doctrine and a clear pathway to an action plan. I want specific rules and concrete steps. I want a systematic shape to the topic at hand so I can quickly go from reading scripture to believing something and then doing something.
…but what if the “something” is like Psalm 18?
Psalm 18 (and a bunch of others) offers up praises for God’s doing and does so in an abstract, grandiose, elevated style. I read it, and read it. I go round and round in the verses. My nose wrinkles and my brow furrows (both rather involuntarily). My lips purse and if I think about it I realize I am scratching the back of my head. From somewhere down inside of me tweets a notification, an emoji shows up on my mind screen and out pops a mental bubble that says, “Hmmm…now what? Of course God is good, but what do I do?!”
…more furrowing of the brow…
Words and explanations are nowhere near the beginning of my thoughts after reading things like Psalm 18. Something is in my mind. Something is rolling around in my sentiments about this passage. Those sentiments live long lives as feelings while they wait for a translator to come along put words on them. Once the words get on those sentiments it still takes a long time form them to be arranged into something coherent, something that can be talked about.
…finally a bit of an Aha!…
That semi-coherent Aha-thing goes like this, “Oh! {smile} David is praising God for all the things God has done.” {Duh, right?}
Twang, notification sound, emoji…up pops that mental bubble again: “Hmmm…now what? Of course God is good and God does good, but what do I do?!” God knows he is good and he knows I believe that so how do I obey? I even use a “better” term than “good” saying God is benevolent and then think about what that means. Perfect! Then I turn the corner and “Oh great, there is that wall again. God is benevolent, but what do I do?!” Where is the rule? Where is the guideline? Where am I to submit and obey? Did not John write in his gospel that to know God is to obey him? I feel a bit like Peter sweating bullets while Jesus kept asking that question1. Peter was stuck in a mental I-don’t-get-it fog.
…ohhhhh, I get it, I am supposed to praise God…hmmm…
My brow stays furrowed {sighing sound goes here}. Next question, “Now what? How does that work?” How do I read and study David’s praises and then praise? Well, to start with, to get out of the box of verse 1 I will set aside the “what do I do?” questions. I will turn my eyes away from myself and onto God for that is what praise is anyway.
A 19 verse meal
Verse 1 – The aroma
1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.
This summary verse with but few words is the shortest, quickest summary of the emotional shape David has toward God who had been his strength. This is not idle or a mere introduction. It is the capsule of the chapter, the candy shell of the M&M®. It also points out that this chapter is not going to be David as instructor, doctrinaire, but chorus leader. It sums up David’s response to God’s being. David does not pay God back by flipping on a switch of love. Love has been developed in David by God’s doing and God’s being.
Verses 2 and 3 – The hors d’oeuvres
2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
Here are all kinds of expansions on the concluding word of verse 1: strength. God heard when David called and David was saved. These expressions are not trite ones offered up to fill out a song. They are words that David connected to events and memories.
Verses 4 to 6 – The appetizers
4 The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; 5 the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
David rolled out the great threats that he was under. They were not minuscule, but major. They were not little things coming to take away conveniences of life, but big things coming to take away the very life.
David then rolled out the call he made to God and the great hearing that God did.
Verses 7 to 15 – The meal
7 Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry. 8 Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. 9 He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. 10 He rode on a cherub and flew; he came swiftly on the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him, thick clouds dark with water. 12 Out of the brightness before him hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. 13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. 14 And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings and routed them. 15 Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
Have you been to a modern movie theater and experienced the auditory and visual immersion that is displayed at the beginning of the movie? It is felt. The sound will cross from front left to back right and rumble under your seat as it passes. Long before George Lucas came a man named David and he could do that with his words. David draws upon his genius in word craft giving magnificence, giving epic, producing a feeling of God in all his power. David raises specters of power. David could say, “Our God is powerful.” Is that what is wanted here? No. David wants you to feel the stomping. David wants you to duck the fire, smell the smoke, and tremble with a primeval angst.
Verses 16-19 – The dessert
16 He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 17 He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support. 19 He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.
David is rescued. After all fell apart around David and the wars and threats simmered down and disappeared God who had wrought that victory came and found his child. God brought that child to a place of rest. David, that child, was taken from crags and cramped places where he had gone to hide into open and exposed, spacious places now made safe. This was done because God delighted in David.
The cooking of those 19 verses
To understand what I mean by cooking I want to point out again that this chapter was being written with a backward glance. He was writing this song after so much had been said and done. He had seen the outcome and from that vantage point he wrote this. Cooking implies the events that had happened that prepared David and molded David and taught David who God was so that he wanted to write this.
As I mentioned in the paragraph on verses 2 and 3 David’s praises and words and magnificent offerings in this poem were the best expressions David could shape around his “me” experiences he had had and had had at the hand of God. David’s dangers, David’s callings, David’s salvation and David’s rescue had been experienced very personally.
David’s trials had been the literals of his life. Life among the literals was the cooking of this meal of praise. Without that crush the meal would not have happened. Without the cracking of the shell the nut is not given up. Without the squeezing of the lemon the juice stays inside its rind.
For David the literals had gone, but had left behind magnificent memories.
Those memories lived in David’s experience as he would walk in Jerusalem or in his palace. They left shapes and intuitions in his mind which hovered around his unconscious but often would burst from those lower levels to the higher levels. Those pre-verbal, known, felt, experienced perspectives were the sources of David’s gratitude. The expression of gratitude can be like trying to tell another why a song or a book moves you. David moved to the grandiose, the larger than life things to put the shape upon it for all to see. The near unspeakable had to move beyond the literal and on to hyperbole and figures of speech in an attempt to bridge the gap to other souls. That is what David is doing here.
Do we have 19 verses?
What is God cooking in my life? What is God cooking in your life? The ingredients of David’s great meal were trials and triumphs. They were desperate times that resulted in desperate prayer calls. The rescues were real rescues and David was taken from bleak confinement to restful release.
You and I may be at a point where the cords of death have not yet wrapped or entangled us. Torrents of destruction may yet come or may have come and gone. We may rather be in the midst of these cords and torrents and still waiting for the rescue of God and the being brought into a “spacious place,” or we may in this time be feeling the earth quaking and trembling with the arrival of God.
No matter where we are in the timeline of our lives God is there because God delights in his children. So whether our 19 verses are being or have been written God is the same. Offerings of praise to him are valuable. We must not forget to call upon God in our younger days nor to praise him as experiences of life are met by the solutions of God.
Do I have 19 verses?
This lesson is one of the yes’s. If you have read the beginning of this you have seen my struggle to find meaning and doing in the first part of this chapter. If something is to be taught it must be understood. How to understand the abstract and the expressions of others is not an easy thing for the purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters and they are only drawn forth by wisdom and care. My first reactions to this passage were difficult, but they become more solid. Praise is not a doing as in a duty. Praise is not a box checked after you finish singing with the congregation and sit down ready to hear the preaching. Praise is a result an event an inevitability and it can have a lot of shapes. Praise cannot be forced. Wait for it, but wait in faith with eyes upon God.
My gratitude comes when I am alone, awake, and carrying a coffee cup in the pre-dawn hours. That is when I, like David, recognize God’s helps and carryings of me in the languishing literals of years. That is when I have the, “yep, that [God] worked” thoughts. That is when I have the “Ohhh, that prayer was answered,” or “Hmmm, I had hoped for that and [chuckle] it happened!”
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