DELIVERANCE! (Psalm 18)

There’s an old folk tale about some blind men trying to describe an elephant. One touched a stout leg and said it was like a tree. The one who touched the elephant’s side called it a strong wall. The one the elephant grabbed by its trunk was sure this mystery was a serpent. The one switched by the animal’s tail thought it was a rope.

Psalm 18 is a lot like that.  It is full of images of God as our rock-solid Protector and Sovereign as David reflects on God’s help in battles against Saul and national enemies. Much of it is also quoted in 2 Samuel 22.

When we’re going through difficult and discouraging times, it’s easy to think God has better things to do than look down and help us. Psalm 18 counters that with a multitude of metaphors of God’s power and care. Its diverse symbols are one reason I keep going back to it to be reminded that nothing is too hard for God. At one of the lowest times of my life, these verses burned into my spirit:

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights….

You broaden the path beneath me so that my ankles do not turn. (vv. 32-33, 36)

In 1980, two years after both my parents died, I was finishing up a master’s degree at a respected college 2,000 miles from my roots. It had a reputation of placing graduates in Christian publishing, and that was my goal.  I’d saved money for years so I could attend without student loans, and I would graduate without debt. Despite lots of job inquiries, however, I was still jobless just a week before I had to vacate college housing with no place to go and little left for living expenses. I had no car--just my typewriter, books, bedding and clothes. With my parents deceased, going “home” wasn’t an option.

I felt like I was stumbling down a boulder-strewn path, spraining my ankles at every turn. Yet I wanted to claim the image of sure-footedness in this psalm:

With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. (v. 20)

The impossible “dream job” offer came just days before I would have been homeless. Another employee provided temporary housing (a mattress on the floor of her bedroom) until I got my feet on the ground.  God-things.

Psalm 18 is for rocky times. It opens with images of strength and military might that involve strong places of protection:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.  He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (v. 2)

 It’s also a reminder of the unfathomable love of God:

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (v. 19)

No matter the challenge, Psalm 18 pulses with hope. It nourishes the weary and wary with the rock-solid truth that God can give us the strength to face our problems. “The Lord lives!  Praise be to my rock! Exalted be God my Savior!” (v. 46).

Fruity duty

A custom of the past still exists at my local county fair, with Grange-sponsored fruit and vegetable displays in the floral and horticulture barn.  I’m not sure of the judging criteria, but each display must illustrate some sort of theme. This year, it was “carnival.”  As I compared the various displays, I thought of how the blessing of food wasn’t taken for granted in ancient times. Our mega-size farms with dinosaur-size planting and harvesting machines were unheard of and undreamed in Bible times.

Farming also took on spiritual meaning with the prophet Hosea.  He’s best known for marrying, at God’s command, an unfaithful woman and using that sorrowful experience to illustrate Israel’s spiritual promiscuity and God’s longing for restoration. His three children’s names were part of the prophecy.

Jezreel, the first-born son, meant “scattered,” for the Israelites would be dispersed from the land.
Lo-Ruhamah, the daughter’s name, meant “Not loved.”
Lo-Ammi, the second daughter, meant “Not my people.”

Hosea’s prophecy condemns relying on anyone or anything other than God for the guiding and sustaining of life. Near the end, he uses some farm imagery that still speaks clearly:

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. (Hosea 10:12)

At some point in my life, I wrote three references in the margin opposite this verse:

*2 Corinthians 7:10: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
*2 Corinthians 9:6: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly well also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”
*Galatians 6:7-9: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.” The verses go on to connect the sinful nature reaping destruction, and pleasing God’s spirit as reaping eternal life.

In ancient cultures, farming was a constant battle of digging out rocks, pulling weeds, and protecting a crop from predators.  Such farming was also a perfect metaphor for living a life pleasing to God.  The spiritual “crop” of a God-centered life doesn’t happen if the inner life is neglected.  From time to time, hardship and hard-to-love people combine to help us break up that “unplowed ground” that isn’t being fruitful for God. 

It may sound strange to say this, but sometimes we need to sit still before God, repent of our weak spiritual areas, and say, “Turn over my soil, Lord.  It’s hard-packed and resistant from persistent sin. Break it up and press your seeds of truth into it.  Help me grow spiritually. Remind me that I’m on display for You.”

Upon this rock

They’re called “cairns” from a Scottish word for heaps of stones used for landmarks or memorials. I live tens of thousands of miles away from Scotland, but last spring some wag in our area started heaping cairns from roadside rocks. When you’re used to seeing the typical debris of cans, papers, plastic bottles and the occasional remains of a deceased tire—well, they added entertainment to highway travel. Rocks are not normally conducive to stacking, so I wondered if some super-glue was sandwiched between the stones to help them endure the air whapped off passing cars. I never stopped to find out.

I thought of the cairns again upon hearing that evangelist Billy Graham, now 93, was hospitalized with pneumonia. Even through frail from aging and Parkinson’s disease, the man who has preached in 185 nations had just finished his 30th book, Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well. His message and presence have unmistakably marked our world for Christ. Presidents and other world leaders have confided in him. Yet he would consider himself just another old rock in the stack. Those he influenced would be stacked on top of him.

And below him? We could go down a lot of rocks, but I’ve always been moved by the part dating to the mid-1800s. A young man from Boston named Edward Kimball decided to teach a Sunday school class to influence teenagers for Christ. One of them, who worked in his uncle’s shoe store, was quite a handful, prone to profanity and anger. Through Kimball’s influence, that teenager eventually chose to become a Christian. His name was Dwight Moody, and his name became better known as he began holding evangelistic meetings. Moody’s meetings, and personal counseling with Moody, helped a student named J. Wilbur Chapman be certain of his salvation. Chapman became a friend and co-worker with Moody.

A baseball player named Billy Sunday came into the picture, converted at street corner meetings and for a brief time an assistant for Chapman’s meetings. Sunday began holding his own evangelistic meetings and started a men’s prayer and fellowship group in Charlotte, N.C.. In 1934, the group invited an evangelist named Mordecai Ham to preach at meetings. A gangly young man named Billy Graham went forward one night to receive Christ. So did another young man, to make a deeper commitment to Christ. His name was Grady Wilson. Their names would eventually be linked as evangelists known throughout the world.

The bottom rock of Graham's story wasn’t even Ed Kimball. Someone had led Kimball to faith in Christ. That person had someone else lead him or her, and...and.... The Bible tells us about the true bottom rock. While others were having heated discussions about who Jesus Christ really was—human or divine, Peter pounded his faith-stake in the ground by declaring, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Of this rock-solid declaration, Jesus replied, “On this rock I will build my church” (v. 18).

Not a flimsy cairn pile, vulnerable to the weather. A solid rock. Unmovable.