450_God gives strength and skill
Psalm 18: 25-36 With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
26 with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
27 For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.
28 For it is you who light my lamp;
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
29 For by you I can run against a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
30 This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
31 For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?—
32 the God who equipped me with strength
and made my way blameless.
33 He made my feet like the feet of a deer
and set me secure on the heights.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
and your right hand supported me,
and your gentleness made me great.
36 You gave a wide place for my steps under me,
and my feet did not slip.
Eric Liddell was an Olympic gold medalist, missionary, and inspiration for the film Chariots of Fire. Born to Scottish missionaries in China, he wanted to serve God with all his heart. He became a world-class sprinter. Yet, in the 1924 Paris Olympics, he refused to run his best event, the 100-meter race, because the heat was scheduled on a Sunday. He believed that the Lord’s Day was meant for worship and rest. That decision made headlines. People mocked and castigated him. But he stood firm in his convictions. Later, he ran the 400-meter race instead—an event he wasn’t expected to win—and set a world record.
Eric once said, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” That statement captures the truth that God manifests his skill, beauty and strength through us, to fulfil his creative pleasure, to show his grace and his power. As we walk in obedience to his will, he enables us to accomplish what we were never meant to do alone.
Psalm 18 is David’s intensely personal version of that story. He knew that every victory in his life was achieved in God’s strength and through God-taught skill. This song commemorates the day when the Lord delivered him from all his enemies, and from the hand of King Saul. Interestingly, Saul is mentioned separately, perhaps because David never did consider him or treat him as his enemy. To David, Saul was God’s anointed, until the day he died. His heart was trained in the ways of God.
To put this psalm in context, David was anointed by the prophet Samuel when he was a lad. But he didn’t become king until he was 30. Through many years of hardship under the threat of king Saul, he stayed barely a step ahead of death, as he told Jonathan on one occasion (1 Samuel 20:3). Even when Saul died, David ruled only the southern part of Israel. It was another seven years before he became king of all Israel.
And then he spent years subduing his enemies and bringing about peace for Israel. This led to the opening words of Psalm 18: “I love you, O Lord, my strength.” They come from a man who has walked through fire and has come out knowing he owes his life and wellbeing to the One who held his hand through it all. David describes God with a series of vivid metaphors: “my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” These are not poetic flourishes—they are how God came to his rescue in moments when David had nowhere else to turn.
Others saw the hand of God on David too. Abigail, the wise wife of the foolish Nabal, said to David, “The life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God, and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling” (1 Samuel 25:29).
In verses 7 to 19 of Psalm 18, David describes how God responded to his cries. The language is dramatic—earthquakes, thunder, smoke, and fire. God moved heaven and earth to rescue his servant. But the most moving words are where David says, “He rescued me because he delighted in me.” There’s no bragging here. The great warrior knows that he is what he is because God chose him. It’s as simple as that. God loved him, and therefore he delivered him.
But David also says: “The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.” David was not sinless. But he walked humbly with his God, directing his steps by God’s word. He sinned, he fell away from God’s commands. But his life was marked by repentance and dependence. And as he walked in justice and mercy before God, refusing to take revenge on Saul, keeping his word to Jonathan, he experienced the justice and mercy of God’s ways. “With the merciful you show yourself merciful… but with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.”
Confidence radiates from David when he says, “By you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.” This is not human optimism—it’s faith forged by persevering through hardship. He had learned to be strong in the Lord, in the might of his power. He had learned that God’s word proves true, that His way is perfect, that He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him.
David uses another powerful image: “He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.” Anyone who has seen a mountain goat or deer go leaping up mountain cliffs knows the sureness of their feet. As David set the Lord always before him, God trained his feet to climb higher surely and steadily, even in dangerous places.
At first, others doubted his ability. Before his readiness to fight Goliath, Saul protested, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth.” But David had already fought lions and bears, for the Lord was with him. He says, “He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” God not only protected him, He equipped him.
And gratefully, he acknowledges: “Your gentleness made me great.” That word “gentleness” could also be translated as humility or compassion. David knew he was flawed. He had seen the dark corners of his own heart. But he had also felt the tender and steadfast mercy of a Father who doesn’t abandon His children.
David goes on to testify of his victories. When he became king of Israel, foreign nations submitted to him. His kingdom expanded widely, like never before. Attributing all his victories to God, he declares: “Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.”
In our world, people are chosen for jobs based on their qualifications—strength, intelligence, skill. But David was a shepherd boy, Moses a wandering exile, Peter and John uneducated fishermen. God often chooses first, and then he trains and equips those who respond. Isaiah 66:2 says, “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” That is the kind of person God strengthens and uses.
Are we willing to be trained by God? Do we walk through difficulty, not as victims, but as students? For God is teaching us and training us to run against troops, to leap over walls, to bend bows of bronze through His strength.
No matter how ordinary we are, how unqualified we feel, Psalm 18 is a reminder that when we walk closely with the Lord, with surrendered hearts and our eyes on him, He will give us both the strength and the skill you need. He will train your hands for battle, make your feet sure, and set you on high places.
Let us pray today: “Lord, let me do Your will. Strengthen me and train me to do what you have appointed for me.” Then, like David, one day we’ll testify, “He rescued me because He delighted in me.” God bless.