Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 18:1-24 (May 15, 2025)

May 15, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 18:1-24

Good morning. We finally have a day without wind, though the air was still pretty thick with dust this morning.   It is a hazy day. I suspect that we all need to pray for good rain, steady and not overwhelming. Please pray today for Annette and Steve. Their little Princess died this morning after an extended illness. As you well know, the loss of a long-time pet friend is a pretty rough time, so please keep them in your prayers. I also want to give thanks to God for our sons who continue to live with us at home. Trees and shrubs around the house needed to be trimmed for garbage pickup, for being able to see clearly down Golf Links, and for draping over the sidewalk in one place. Yes, we got the infamous letter to trim from the city, giving us less than 8 days to get it finished. Our sons stepped up to the plate and got the work done. Please also pray for our son Joshua and his wife Shannon as they drive down from Ft Collins, CO next week to be here to support Shannon's dad, Jeff, who is battling a cancer that is similar to Kandice's. He will get his newest test results next week. Pray for good news for Jeff and his family. A reminder that we will have a movie on Saturday afternoon at church. It is an excellent and quite unique story about a young boy who must journey to save his home and comes to accept that his own way in the world, one filled with love, is better than to succumb to the temptations of the people of power around him. 

This morning, we enter the texts of the 18th Psalm.  This one will take a couple of weeks to move through, but it really can speak to each and every one of us as we live lives that are all too often surrounded by troubling experiences that might well take us to death. It could be a car accident, an illness, a big storm of harsh and dangerous weather, or something even worse. David gives us a list of the kinds of things like this that have happened to him, and though we may not know the specifics of everything to which he refers, we do know for ourselves the places which are similar to David's. As I sat in my recliner on my 65th birthday, house full of well wishes, I didn't feel like celebrating. It wasn't that I didn't care, but rather, I really felt sick! A little later I drove myself to St Joseph's Hospital, got into the waiting area for emergency, where I stayed for 18 hours before the staff got to me, and then was told I would be in surgery the next morning bright and early.  I had appendicitis, ready to burst. A few more hours and I would not have come out alive! in the early 70s Melody and I were on our way home in our VW bus camper, when we saw a tornado coming across the farm fields in central Ohio right toward us. VW buses were never fast, but at that time I drove with all the power my foot could nurse out of the pedal and motor. But we made it to safety! 

I also had an abdominal hernia, which I suspect came from working on the White River in western Michigan, where I handled often as many as 100 ninety-pound canoes on a Saturday in the summer. Yet another life-threatening problem that required that abdominal muscle tear, which could entrap my intestines and create a need for massive surgery correction, but a friend, Dr Leland Swenson, encouraged me, and promised to be with me during the surgery. There was another time too, as the current boys and I sat on Campbell near Grant while a massive, large hail and windstorm roared across the city. Once again, our lives were threatened. I was certain that the car would be destroyed, and worse, that all the glass on the east side of the van was going to break out, and the car covered in dents. God really was with us. There was no shattered glass, and not one single hail dent! I know that you have the same kinds of stories, and if we are faithful, trusting in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we will know His delivery in one way or another. There are, of course, the other kinds of threats, which come into contact with us, and draw us away from our Loving God, we get tempted to choose our own way in opposition to God's way, and discover the great tragedy of faith that just isn't as strong as it needs to be, leaving us open to the evil one. That usually happens when we have not had a strong relationship with God on a regular basis. We must turn to God praying for our faith to be strong enough to resist when that happens. It is here, toward the end of reading for today, that David turns to God proclaiming his love for Him. This word in this Psalm is used only here in the Bible. It translates most easily to "love”, however, it means absolute devotion, and the deep and binding emotional attachment that David has for the father. It almost sounds here like David is the "perfect" believer, who never does anything that God might find troubling as David lives his life on earth. You do remember David's experience with a certain married woman named Bathsheba? So, toward the end of our passage for today, David is proclaiming his faithfulness to God, and his dependence on his Heavenly Father to keep him safe, just as God has always done for him, and just as God does for each one of us through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior.

With love in Christ, Pastor Kim