Following Monday’s Labor Day coffee, today we return to our regular Monday prayer post. Today’s verses: Psalm 18:31-45
In prayer, David personified Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Notice how David attributed every ability and victory to the Lord; He made everything he accomplished possible.
It was the Lord who had prepared David’s way, taught him, trained him, and delivered him. When David sang, “For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle…” (Psalms 18:39 KJV), he credited God for the victory. Girding was essential to free motion on account of the looseness of Oriental dresses; hence, it is an expressive figure for describing the gift of strength.[1] Thus, David symbolically stated that the Lord’s strength, not his own, brought his triumphs.
Years before, as David sat by a sheepfold looking after his father’s flock, one could never imagine that this ruddy shepherd boy would become a mighty warrior. In truth, David never would have been that strong soldier had he not passed through God’s “production line,” where each stop definitively combined to make him what he was. Had he not killed the bear and lion in his private battle, he may never have stood between two armies in the Valley of Elah (cf. 1 Samuel 17:2, 19); had he not killed Goliath, he may never have been in the king’s court; had he not been in the king’s court….
As a Christian, you are His workmanship, and each stop along this life’s production line adds to your personal completion in Christ. The Lord has a perfect plan for how you should live—a holy life ordained from the foundation of the world—and what you should do in your obedience to Him.
Join me in praying that we can fulfill all He desires for us and acknowledge that He is our all in all!
[1] Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., Fausset, A. R., Brown, D., & Brown, D. (1997). A commentary, critical and explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.