David was often in big trouble:  Saul tried to take his life many times, he has to be smuggled out of his house, Saul tries to pin him with his spear. Saul swings from praising him to trying to kill him in the blink of an eye, yet God keeps him safe throughout the waiting time between anointing and crowning. As a boy God protected him from wild animals, and later the giant Goliath and then the tricks of Saul.

As David testifies to this in this Psalm, he contrasts the massive power and nature of God with the amazing personal nature of His intervention. He comes to rescue me, David says (v.16 - 19), there’s a confidence in God’s willingness to save and delight in His chosen child David. There’s a confidence in who David is because of what God has done. God has enabled David to do great things, because of his clean hands, (remember God looks on the heart 1 Samuel 16.7) given to him by God.  David’s learned to trust God with the sheep and the outdoor life of a shepherd boy, he got his outlaw training and his leadership skills on the hill with the sheep. He knows that God will give him everything he needs to please Him (see 2 Peter 1.3).

We often read psalms but don’t often study them. They are encouraging and comforting, this one speaks of the personal involvement of the God of everything who has every power of nature at His disposal and yet still reaches down to protect those He loves, the individual.

David is confident about what God has done for him, it’s come from God’s greatness, not David’s. He doesn’t question the gifts or his rescue. We all know David’s going to make multiple mistakes, but he is sure of the righteousness God gives and the success promised to his people, He’s sure the God of everything reaches down for him (v.16). He reaches down for us too in every circumstance.

David understood that God was the power behind every part of his life. Do we?

It is God who arms me with strength!

God cares, acts, delivers, equips, carries out justice, blessing and protecting the righteous.

David is sure he belongs to God, it takes many years between his anointing and his ascending the throne. He didn’t have a pattern for earthly kingship to think about beyond the little kings of the enemy states surrounding Israel. God was going to use him to break the mould, and many years were in his preparation. Just like Jesus!

***

So come and be chainless

Come and be fearless

Come to the foot of Calvary

For there is redemption

For every affliction

Here at the foot of Calvary

Rend Collective ‘Rescuer’