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Be Exalted

             The king rejoices in your strength, Lord. How great is his joy in the victories you give! You have granted him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. You came to greet him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head. He asked you for life, and you gave it to him— length of days, for ever and ever.

Through the victories you gave, his glory is great; you have bestowed on him splendor and majesty. Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence. For the king trusts in the Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken. Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies; your right hand will seize your foes. When you appear for battle, you will burn them up as in a blazing furnace. the Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and his fire will consume them. You will destroy their descendants from the earth, their posterity from mankind. Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed. You will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow. Be exalted in your strength, Lord; we will sing and praise your might. (Psalm 21)

 

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

 

Like Psalm 20, this song is a “Royal Psalm.” Since David is the writer, we can expect big language, but even if he weren’t the writer, the song is written about God’s relationship with the king of His people, Israel. An attack against David was an attack against God.

It has to be big, or at least bigger than a song about my life. Somehow, a song about God giving me victory over a patch of beggar ticks (Bidens alba) or over a portion of a story I’m writing that needs improvement doesn’t quite come up to the same level of importance as the king of a nation protecting his nation from invaders. Or so we might like to believe. The reality goes back to the verses that follow Ephesians 6:12, because the Promised Land and nation over which we are king and for which we need to pray is the one between our ears, and it is the one over which He is God.

So we can pray and sing this psalm along with David. And in the many cases where se don’t see what is said, we can wait patiently and give thanks in advance, knowing that God will be God, and therefore will fulfill those promises in time. The key is “For the king trusts in the Lord.”

And as long as we are doing that we can end our daily songs with “Be exalted in Your strength, Lord; we will sing and praise Your might.” 

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