and he will trample down our enemies." Psalm 108:13
Last night during my Bible reading I spent some time in the Psalms. When I have those days where I just don't know what I should be reading, the Psalms are always a good choice to go to. Last night it was Psalm 107-109, and as I read 108, I thought about how just reading the words here on the page felt like it was giving me a great boost in my spirit. I wasn't having a bad day at all, I wasn't in a tired mood or anything, but still, reading these words in Psalm 108 I just felt so encouraged, and reminded, that it is God who will take care of us.
Often times I hear it said that God has our back, you know, meaning that He will back us up when we are following His will, except that I'm thinking that is a little backwards. In fact, when we are following God's will, and consulting Him for direction, HE will take care of things completely for us, not just help clean up the mess afterwards. God did it for David, several time when he was in an actual battle.
"As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army." 2 Samuel 5:24
God went before David, and as a result, David was victorious over his enemy. And what God did for David, God can do for us, because God is no respecter of persons- what He does for one, He will do for another.
Now we obviously are not running around this earth in battles, literally fighting off the enemy with swords and spears, but everyday we could potentially face something that we could regard as an enemy. Maybe our enemy is the clock- with not enough hours in the day to accomplish all we'd like. With God's help, we can make time work for us, and end up with everything done that we wanted to. I see this all the time. Really! We will plan to have company on what is an otherwise busy day, and I will know I don't have enough time to really get the house clean, get food prepared, and spend time with our guests. Yet every single time, I get the cleaning completely done, food prepared, AND I get to spend plenty of time visiting, it's almost like God slows time down while I am busy. I've even found that our Sundays themselves are loaded with time we didn't know we had! With church in the morning and the evening, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time in between to get stuff done. But wouldn't you know, every week, I feel like I spend the afternoon doing something, only to look at the clock and see that it's only 2:30 or so, and that we have several hours left before we have to head out again. Time really isn't our enemy anymore, because we have God before us.
Sometimes our enemy can be our own thoughts. I know I have those days... and usually those are the days where I spend no or very little time in His Word. The fact is, when my thoughts are unpleasant about other people, it's a tell-tale sign that I've not been spending enough time in my Bible, because when I do, my mind is filled with the good things and goodness of God. God can trample that enemy of bad thoughts, but first I have to give Him the right to be there in the first place by taking in all those words He has to say to me.
As I go back and read Psalm 108 in its entirety, I am also reminded that God likes it when we praise Him during our trials. Oh, God loves that, when we can discard those thoughts that dwell on our problems, and just focus on Him. Often times, praise is the very answer we need. There's that popular song about praising God in the storm, and it's really very true, that when we can focus on Him, when we can cast aside our trials for a time and really praise God and thank Him for His Son, and thank Him for life, then His favor can shine on us, and our problems will fade away. God is always worthy of our praise- we could be crawling through a mud pit, but if we are praising God, the crawling will seem to go much faster, because He'll be with us, bolstering us and giving us what we need to make it through. With God before us, who can be against us? No one. And nothing. With Him, there is always victory.
"My heart is steadfast, O God;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.
2 Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
3 I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth.
6 Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered." Psalm 108:1-6
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