“In desperate straits”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, December 5, 2024
Psalm 18: 1-19 (Forward, p. 37) CEV p. 563
While generally we may not find ourselves in such desperate straits as David found himself while he was being pursued by Saul, most of us can identify with his feelings of being ‘caught between a rock and a hard place.’ David describes his predicament in rather graphic, and somewhat ‘over the top’ imaginary, but we certainly ‘get it’. He is in desperate straits:
“Death had wrapped its ropes around me, and I was almost swallowed by its flooding waters” (verse 4).
“Ropes from the world of the dead had coiled around me, and death had set a trap in my path” (verse 5).
And certainly, he describes God’s intervention in rather grandiose, rather otherworldly, rather over the top, terms:
“I was in terrible trouble when I called out to you, but from your temple you heard me and answered my pray. The earth shook and shivered, and the mountains trembled down to their roots. You were angry and breathed out smoke. Scotching heat and fiery flames spewed from your mouth” (verses 6-8).
“You opened the heavens like curtains, and you came down with storm clouds under your feet. You rode on the backs of flying creatures and swooped down with the wind as wings. Darkness was your robe, thunderclouds filled the sky, hiding you from sight. Hailstones and fiery colas lit up the sky in front of you” (verses 9-12).
“You reached down from heaven, and you lifted me from deep in the ocean. You rescued me from enemies who were hateful and too powerful for me. On the day disaster struck, they came and attacked, but you defended me. When I was fenced in, you freed and rescued me because you love me” (verses 16-19).
I doubt that very much of this is literally true. I really doubt that God literally breathed out smoke or rode on the backs of flying creatures but the image, the impression, is still quite valid. Because of His care for David, God took immediate and decisive action, action that really ‘made a difference’ in David’s life. And so, David, while describing it in grandiose and overly graphic terms, is describing something that is no less real for himself, namely a God who cares and who acts. And so it is with each of us as well. We know, love, and serve the same God, and so we can expect nothing less. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “He heard my voice from his heavenly dwelling; my cry of anguish came to his ears” (verse 7).
“I know my mother’s voice. The cadence of her speech, the pitch of her voice, and the tone of her words have been the soundtrack to my life. Growing up, I knew what she was feeling just by the tone of her voice. Like my grandmother, her voice carried her emotions with little hidden.
“Voices are important to us. What I wouldn’t give to hear my grandmother’s voice once more. I suspect you have loved ones whose voices you long to hear again.
“In this season, we are all listening for the familiar voice of God speaking, whispering, sighing in our world. As we await the Word, God’s voice, becoming flesh in our world, we are challenged to listen for the familiar voice of the One who calls all things into being. You know God’s voice; you have heard it before.
“Now listen.”
Moving Forward: “What voice do you long to hear? If possible, call the person and listen. If not, talk to them through prayer.”
A concluding note: as I hear David’s descriptions of God’s rather surreal interventions on his behalf, I cannot help being reminded of some of the strange and otherworldly descriptions Jesus used to describe the End Times. I know that many pastors and scholars take Jesus’ descriptions as being literally true, but is it possible that these apocalyptic images were also figures of speech, oversize, otherworldly, images, just as they were for David? I wonder.