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