If ya can’t beat em’, join ‘em, Sort of. 🤔

I find it absolutely WILD that David goes back to King Achish of Gath – the king before whom he pretended to be insane. 🤪

If I had written the Bible, this is how this meeting would’ve gone down:

🤴🏾 Achish: Have we met before? You look really familiar…

🧔🏽 David: No. Nope. You’ve probably heard about me, though. I’m the David in the song. Only, you should know that those numbers were inflated for effect.

🤴🏾 Achish: Wait a minute! I know! Aren’t you the crazy man who came here a year or two ago?

🧔🏽 David: Nope. Not me. I am perfectly sound of mind. Just looking at the local real estate for a place to settle down with my family.

🤴🏾 Achish: So you’ve decided to leave those mutton-busters for good and come live the high life, huh? How about you settle in Ziklag? It’s a quiet town out in the country. plenty of pasture… and room for the kids to practice with their slings.

🧔🏽 David: Sounds perfect.

That is NOT how the conversation went but the long and short of it is that David moved into Philistine territory and was a double agent. He picked up the mantle of Joshua and began to finally finish the task of driving the Canaanite tribes out of the land. But his “cover story” was that he was a bandit attacking his own people and the tribes (like the Kenites) with whom they long had peace.

David was kinda like Zorro. Which I was watching earlier – the old black & white 📺 Disney one – while washing up the dishes 🍽️. (Don’t judge me. Or do. It’s a free country.) Then I chatted with my mom on the phone 📱 and took an evening walk so this post is not going to be terribly long or deep because bloggers have to sleep and work in the morning too.

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PSALM 17

In many of his psalms, David calls himself “righteous.”

☝🏼🤨 Wait a minute! I thought the Bible said somewhere that there was none righteous, “no not one.”

🤓 Yes. That was the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:10. But guess what – Paul was quoting David! In Psalm 14 he wrote:

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭14‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

🤔 So was David INCLUDING himself or EXCLUDING himself from the “no one” that does good? Make it make sense! How can David say in Psalm 14 that “not a single one” is good and then in Psalm 17 make all these claims about being examined by God and found innocent and that he hasn’t ever wavered from following Yahweh and stuff?

🤓 Well, to me, this is proof that the psalms are inspired and should be read as prophetic prayers from the Word in red letters.

🤔 But I thought you said before that these were songs that came from David’s heart and experience? I’m SO confused.

🤓 Let’s knock out that mental wall and see how your brain functions with an open concept floor plan. It’s BOTH. The Psalms are BOTH the songs of the psalmists AND the Word of God.

🤓 Here’s another thought to chew on… It seems like that when David speaks of being tested and God finding nothing wrong he means that he has been consistently loyal to Yahweh. We tend to think of these things in terms of moral perfection. But there’s only One Person Who is morally perfect. And it’s not David. And David knows this.

He also has some kind of prophetic inkling of the resurrection:

“As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭17‬:‭15‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

David is piecing together the fact that the resurrected saints will be made perfect like the Lord; that we will be glorified and eternally FREE FROM SIN. 🥳🎉

The best way to meditate on Psalm 17 (or at least verses 1-8) is to hear it as it was intended to be heard – as a song. If you are not familiar with the music group The Sons of Korah, here is your introduction.

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PSALM 35

This psalm is a prayer practicum.

Specifically, if you have been done wrong, this is your template for how to pray.

Many times when I don’t know how to pray about a situation, I will get out my ragged little New Living Translation and turn to the Psalms. I’ll flip through a few and usually one will hit just so. 📖 And the next thing you know I’m pacing my floor praying the text out loud. (I have to be careful to not do too many laps around my small living room because I’ll get dizzy).

☝🏼😵‍💫 “Hold on a sec, Lord…”

I like the NLT for praying the Psalms out loud because they are translated in a way that feels like normal speech. And also because the NLT is a thought for thought translation and when it comes to poetry and song lyrics, I think it does a fantastic job of capturing the ideas.

I encourage you to pray the Psalms if you don’t already. Make notes in the margins – like “Pray this when you feel betrayed.” Or, “Pray this one over the nation.”

If you ever wonder “Does God hear my prayer? What if I’m not praying the right way? What if I don’t know what to say?” You can’t get any better than praying scripture. Of course God is going to hear it and of course it is “the right words.” Praying scripture is also like the most amazing training program for improving and building up your prayer vocabulary and ability.

Praying is like being able to lift weights. 🏋️‍♂️ Nobody starts with 300 pounds on the bar. You have to work out those muscles and build them. You have to TRAIN. A lot. You have to endure feeling like a wimpy rookie at the gym in front of the big guys with the big guns. God can do anything, but it has been my general observation that people do not just wake up one morning fluent and courageous in prayer anymore than they wake up suddenly looking like a body builder. 💪🏼🤨

Start where you are. But start.

The Word of God is POWERFUL and it IS our only offensive weapon – “the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” (Eph. 6:17).

🗡️

Praying scripture can and does tear down demonic strongholds. It brings absolute TRUTH to bear on a situation because it is God’s Word and the TRUTH.

You can even fill your home with the Word of God. You can play an audio Bible on a speaker. 🔊

But use caution. ⚠️

One of my Bible college professors had an audio Bible on cd 💿 that was in her guest bathroom. It was plugged into an outlet that when you turned on the bathroom light, the player started up. 🚽🛀

She had a couple stay as guests in her home and during the night the gentleman got up to use the restroom. He was not warned about the cd player. He turned on the light. There was a brief pause and then (I kid you not)…

“… Aha! Aha! Our eye hath seen it.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭35‬:‭21‬ ‭KJV‬‬

😂

See you next week.