Daily Devotional • August 29
Psalm 18:1-20
1 I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock, 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,
so I shall be saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of perdition 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.
7 Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and reeled 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 upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his covering around him,
his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
12 Out of the brightness before him
there broke through his clouds
hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice.
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.
16 He reached down from on high; he took me;
he drew me out of mighty waters.
17 He delivered 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 delivered me because he delighted in me.
20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.
Meditation
God rescued me because he delighted in me… (Psalm 18:20b)
Strong enemies (v. 18), the cords of hell (v. 5), the torrents of oblivion (v. 4), the breakers of death (v. 4), earthquakes (v. 8), those who hate (v. 18), all conspire to present the Psalmist with his own tailor-made day of disaster. Nevertheless the section read this morning begins “I love the Lord” and ends with the celebratory “the Lord is my support” and “God has rescued me.”
To think of Psalm 18 as a companion to Job’s ‘friend’ Bildad the Shuhite’s monologue might predispose the reader to imagine God to be a god whose saving strength is reserved only for the “pure and upright” — the blameless. In the case of Bildad, he’s certain Job would not be in the fix he’s in if things had been right between Job and the Lord.
It is hard to appreciate the Good News in the very select saving that Bildad’s God would seem to offer — a saving designed for those already redeemed. But God’s saving strength is sure because God delights in you. God’s saving strength is sure — not dependent on a successful life evaluation — because Jesus, his only Son, stretched his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross.
Because God delights in you, he brings you in safety to this new day. Because God delights in you, he acts that you may not fall into sin nor be overcome by adversity. The Psalmist is in trouble this morning. If you cannot sympathize with him in his anguish, the day will come when you will. When it does, cry out with him to the Lord. Love the Lord for his mercy is everlasting and his rescue is sure. God delights in you.
Come then…help your people, bought with the price of your own blood. (BCP, p. 96).
The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough is the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. He was previously dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Ijumu – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, St. Louis