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'Rock' is a funny old word, don't you think?
It can mean SO many different things in different contexts ... heavy metal music, a rod of sweet sticky stuff you buy at the beach, to sway rhythmically back and forth, a diamond or other gem, to wear a garment well ('she really ROCKED that look!'), to be deeply shocked ... and of course, there's the use of the word that actually refers to a piece of geology.
Of course, the word seems to have started out in life as a geological reference, but it came to mean so many different things in different contexts after that.
It even became a popular meaphorical way to speak of God!
In Psalm 18, David celebrates the way that the Lord upheld him whilst he maintained a faithful response, insisting on not taking things into his own hands, during a really trying time in his own life.
There are close parallels between this psalm and 2 Samuel 22 (a historical account) after God finally gave David the Kingship that he'd long been anointed for ... all in spite of the strong opposition of his predecessor, king Saul.
Not taking matters into his own hands
But the key thing in all of this is that David - having been promised the Kingship by God, and persecuted ferociously by Saul - didn't try to take things into his own hands but rested on God to both protect David and bring His promises to fruition.
And it was in celebrating the fruit of waiting patiently for God to fulfil His purposes that David, the psalmist, wrote his song:
"The Lord is my rock,
my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock,
in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold."
Psalm 18:2
The Point
Going for paper and scissors in that childhood game always looked to me like wanting to rush the job. Rock is strong, steady and constant ...
no sign of temporary expedients or of hurrying things.
How hard do you find it to wait?
I find 'Wait!' to be the most difficult of all the Lord's commands to obey!
But if you discipline yourself to trust Him, that puts a different perspective on things ... and recolours the picture altogether.
David's psalm becomes a celebration of the safety of trusting God as your stable and securing rock and safe place of refuge ... as David recounts the detail of the deliverance God brought him while he waited and trusted in the Word of the Lord for his deliverance.
The Takeaway
We live in an age of almost everything except furniture being sold to us ready-made and instant.
Our world is all 'get it NOW!', 'steak on your plate' and not 'wait!'
But God rewards faithfulness while waiting for Him to fulfil His promises.
And that requires deep adjustment to our patterns of thought ...
The message of Psalm 18, in its context, is that faithful reliance on God's promises and waiting for Him to keep them pays off.
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