If I didn’t know it before, I have decided that my life is complex! The challenges of my life have exceeded any likely prediction from my youth, based on any indicators at that time. Across the years, complexities surfaced for many reasons too lengthy to enumerate here. A few trusted individuals who know me best would even verify that most of these trials are not of my own making. They just happened. Difficult life events just come our way. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Living in a fallen world can sure wreak havoc in our otherwise potentially peaceful lives, and sometimes even the activity of God in our lives seems like a confusing chaos. I don’t know. Maybe some people still grow up in Beaver Cleaver-type families and then go on to live glib, untroubled lives in adulthood, but that number is rare and shrinking, it seems to me. For the rest of us whose troubles remind us we live in the real world, the Scripture of the Psalms can be extremely comforting, especially when we realize we are enduring life’s toughest times.
It was exactly such a time for me in a hotel room near Manhattan, Kansas a dozen or more years ago. My all-to-frequent visitors of self-doubt, grief and pain bordering on clinical depression had confronted me once again. I was on a business trip, and while the many activities of the day kept me busy and completely occupied, the remnant of an evening spent alone seemed to leave me no other choice than to face the hopelessness of my situation. Alone and feeling blue I recalled that I had once heard my evangelist friend, Nathan Covington, preach a sermon from a portion of Psalm 18. Specifically, he liked the imagery of 18:33.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.
The image of being sure footed and steady, even on the extremely narrow path of the very highest mountain trail lifted my spirits momentarily. I could imagine a deer stepping ever so gently at every point along a narrow mountain path, with only an expanse of nothingness for miles below. From heights such as this, a careless mis-step could bring certain disaster. Maintaining a secure footing because of the presence of God seems to have been the promise, not only for the deer but also for the Psalmist. I felt hope from that thought, but I had yet to connect with the rest of Psalm 18. As I read them that night, they became words I desperately needed to hear. I clung to words and images such as these:
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold…. The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me…. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me…. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty…. It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect…. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze…. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. The Lord lives! Praise be to my rock! Exalted be God my Savior! … Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O Lord; I will sing praises to your name. (18:2,4-5,16-19,27,32,34,36,46,49).
That night, in the darkness of my angst, the words of this Psalm began to speak volumes of comfort, hope, peace and wisdom to my soul. I began to feel fresh and new encouragement pouring back in, and I wept warm tears of hope. Though spiritually and emotionally exhausted before, now I felt I was arriving at a new and better place. I hope you will find the words of this Psalm as solidly encouraging as I did. Though years have passed since that first stunning encounter with Psalm 18, I still need to accept this truth and believe it now more than ever. The Lord is still my rock, my fortress and my deliverer. Believe it for you!
— John Martin
