prayer for victory

How do we pray when we are distressed? Psalm 18 has been a prayer that offers repeated help to me when in times of trouble. Today I want to break down the components of Psalm 18, for it has patterns we see in all the Psalms, though perhaps not in its entirety as we see here, and it offers guidelines for our own prayers for victory.

1. Relationship – (vs 1) “I love you”. Here is where we decide whether to love, or to blame God.

2. Who God is – (vs 1b-2) “strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, refuge, shield, salvation, & stronghold. Affirming God’s nature helps us to have faith in Who He is.

3. What God has done – (vs 3-6) “saved me from my enemies . . . death”. Remembering what He has done gives us motivation to press in to Him for more.

4. How God provided help – (vs 7-16) was motivated by His anger at abuse towards David, came down to settle the matter, protected His workings with a cloak of darkness, routed the enemy, and saved David. Note that in this section the Lord “laid bare” the foundations of the earth. God let His foundations, or His plans, be exposed concerning David. God’s plans were that David would be king. Recounting God’s works encourages us that He is more than able to do on our behalf what He has done in the past, and that we have a plan for our lives.

5. David’s problem – (vs 17-18) Enemies too powerful and strong for him. They also attacked him at a time of weakness. Being honest with God is a necessary part of our petition for help.

6. God’s help – (vs 18b-19) Support provided by God, David being brought into a better place. When God gets involved we end up better off, not just going through the trial, but afterwards.

7. Why God helped David – (vs 19b-24) “He delighted in me.” God dealt with David according to his faithfulness towards God and God’s expectations of him. We stand in God’s love of us (something imperative for us to believe during our troubles) and in the righteousness of Christ, with our obedience to the truth as we know it.

8. God’s character – (vs 25-27) He is faithful to the faithful, blameless to the blameless, pure to the pure, but to the crooked He is shrewd. God saves the humble but brings down the proud. God’s thoughts towards us are good and proceed from His holiness, but we will not see it that way if our heart is “crooked” and our mind is full of prideful thoughts.

9. The benefit to David – (vs 28-29) God turns his darkness into light (brings understanding, direction, discernment knowledge) and keeps his lamp burning. David can scale a wall and advance against a troop, going above and beyond what a normal man can do. The very weapons we need to defeat our enemies are provided to us by the Lord, and on top of that, supernatural strength to overcome.

10. More about God’s character and His benefit to David – (vs 30-36) Repeating these themes shows an on-going relationship between David and the Lord. God’s “way is perfect”, His “word is flawless”, He is a shield & a rock who arms David with strength and makes his way perfect (here we see that the process of knowing God and being helped by God transforms David’s ways from one who was being overcome to one who is perfect, overcoming his enemies). God enables him to stand on the heights (to see things from God’s vantage point) and is taught how to war successfully. God “stoops down to make me great,” and makes David’s stand a more secure place (our faith often wavers when we do not sense that God is with us in our troubles. This wavering gives us a sense of tottering on a narrow precipice, or insecurity). Relationship with the Lord develops through our dependence on Him and our willingness to lay aside our weakness for His strength.

11. Victory – (vs 37-38) Enemies were overtaken, destroyed, crushed, and bowed at David’s feet. The victories are permanent, and the relationship to our enemies forever changed.

12. Praises & acknowledgements of God’s enabling power – (vs 39-50) This shows God’s partnership with David. David uses “you” 5 times to mention what God did, and tells how the Lord subdued his enemies, causing them to be in submission to him. He praises God. The way to avoid pride is to give credit for the enabling power of God in our lives. This also shows how much we value the Lord and His help.