I love you, O LORD, my strength. 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.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me;the torrents of destruction assailed me;the cords of Sheol entangled me;the snares of death confronted me.
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.Then the earth reeled and rocked;the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet.He rode on a cherub and flew;he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.He made darkness his covering, his(P) canopy around him,thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.
The LORD also thundered in the heavens,and the Most High uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings and routed them. 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.
He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of(AB) many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity,but the LORD was my support.He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me….
Psalm 18:1-19
There’s nothing like a good dose of tragedy to help you see where your hope/ dependence really lies. Difficulties in life have a strange way of exposing what we trust in.
Believe you me, there’s no shortage of overused examples, so I’ll spare you the quaint little stories. I will however direct you to the psalms as a place that offers some amazing pictures of faith in a pinch. On countless occasions we find David on the run for his life or in some sort of danger or another. And repeatedly, we see him crying out to the LORD. We see where his hope really lies.
And this isn’t a picture of the proverbial atheist in a foxhole ( someone who cries out to God because their life is in danger but otherwise has no use for him). David’s cries are a the cries of a man who is intimately acquainted with the LORD of Heaven and Earth.
How’s your response to hardship? When difficulties come, do you sulk…..or do you sing? My prayer is that all of us would be able to sing with David,
“The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation—“
even when times are tough….
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