So many days, my devotional time becomes a ritual, like drinking my morning coffee, which I don’t check my brain into, which later, when I look back on my day, I don’t remember having done. Before I forget today, I thought I’d take the time to jot down a few thoughts I had reading Psalm 144.
Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle–
My lovingkindness and my fortress,
My high tower and my deliverer,
My shield and the One in whom I take refuge,
Who subdues my people under me….
Bow down Your heavens,
O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Shoot out Your arrows and destroy them.
Stretch out Your hand from above;
Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
From the hand of foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
I will sing a new song to You, O God;
On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You, The One who gives salvation to kings,
Who delivers David His servant from the deadly sword.
Admittedly, when I heard myself this string of war and soldier images come out of my mouth as I read aloud, I prepared to check out and check “devotions” off the to-do list. Because of all the things in the Bible I have trouble relating to, themes of warfare tend to elude me most — especially David. I mean, when he’s talking about the enemies who are out to destroy him, he’s not speaking in metaphor! King Saul really was out to get him, to steal the throne God had promised David. He threw spears at David when he was playing harp in the palace, and when David ran away and hid out in caves, he was avoiding entire armies with the sole order to capture and kill. Not really something I run across in my solitary authorly life, which takes me out of the house all of twice a week for grocery shopping and church! Then I tried to think of friends and family who actually do venture out into the wide world a bit more than I do, and even then with the exception of the odd soldier or two, I couldn’t think of a direct application.
Except that the phrase my high tower seemed to be playing on repeat in my mind, because I’d read it the other day in a magazine article about Mr. Burt’s sister and brother-in-law, and their first daughter Madeline, whose name means that. When Stephanie was pregnant with Madeline, there were foreigners speaking lying words, whose right hands were the right hand of falsehood, that there was no chance she would carry full-term, or live after birth. But they believed the promises of God our deliverer, and were blessed with a miracle baby, healthy, and the sweetest little girl you ever saw.
So…the foreigners, the people against whom we do battle…they’re not people who are out to slay us with swords, or guns, or whatever people say with these days. They’re not even bad people. They can be good people, with good intentions, and an earnest desire to help us. But people, even good people, aren’t perfect. They make errors of judgment, can’t see the full scope of God’s plan — if they believe in God’s plan at all. The liars can even be ourselves, when we’re trapped in the great waters, and can’t see any way out, and are plagued by anxiety, worry, self-doubt, past failure, fear of the uncertain future, and…I could go on and on, but I don’t need to. We all know what words are whispered to us in those dark hours.
The fact is, there’s nothing the devil won’t stoop to using to fight us, and fight God’s plan for us — His perfect plan to prosper us, and not to harm us, to give us a future and a hope and bring us peace. The liars can be trusted friends or family whose advice comes more readily than God’s direction…bill collectors or mortgage brokers or insurance companies who make us question how great is God’s faithfulness, and whether all we have need of His hand really will provide…sickness or injuries that bear grim prognoses that cause us to turn away from our Great Physician…opportunities that hold promises of the solution to all our troubles… Anything can, and will, be a weapon against us, and it’s not always easily identifiable. The devil comes as an angel of light, remember, as often as he comes as a lion prowling to and fro on the earth. But I’m convinced that no matter how attractive something may be, if it’s the right hand of falsehood, it will still feel as overwhelming as great waters all around.
It’s something, by the way, I’ve been coming to terms with in regard to seriously pursuing publication for my first novel. It’s not ready, and I know that in my heart, despite that pressure to make something of that year-and-a-half’s work. And every time I’ve pursued that path, instead of waiting and writing, it’s all been uphill and discouraging and stormy seas. Which doesn’t sound like God’s plan for peace, does it?
(Not to say that sometimes the right path won’t be uncomfortable; but an inner sense of dwelling in a tall tower, and a shelter will accompany that — His rod and staff comfort us, yea though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.)
Lord, what is man,
That You should take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him?
Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow.
What little, helpless people we are, and how we need a tower, a shield, a shelter, a deliverer, a rescuer.
Thank God we have one.
The one thing I notice in reading this passage is that rescue doesn’t come in the Psalm — the floodwaters still rage against David’s tower. Yet he says: Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.
I like that.
And I believe it.
Between my Lord God and me, I’m happy.
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