By Flame and Favor (Psalm 18) | The Psalms and the Woman’s Soul

Artwork Credit: Liberated by Blood and Fire (2016) by Chris Pedayo. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in.
Used with permission of the artist. View the listing at MutualArt.com (search: Chris Pedayo).

    There are cries that reach heaven. They may rise from a place so hidden that even we cannot fully explain them. David remembered such a cry. Trouble had hemmed him in, and death had come near. He had been pursued and afflicted. Then he called out, and the Lord answered. “In my distress I called upon the Lord… He heard my voice… Then the earth shook and trembled” (Ps 18:6–7, NKJV).

    This psalm has many movements—flashes of fire, thick darkness under His feet, waters stirred by the breath of God. “He bowed the heavens also, and came down…” (v. 9). We can say this is not a quiet deliverance. It is the kind of rescue that tears through the natural order to reach one soul. What kind of love would shake the sky to save a sinner?

    David sang of a God who rescued him from waters too deep, from enemies too strong. “He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters” (v. 16). These words rise from a battlefield and conflict. And the hand that reached David was holy.

    The psalm says, “He delivered me because He delighted in me” (v. 19). That delight is hard to believe at times. Many of us feel like the ones always failing, always catching up, always repenting again. Yet we have to remember that in Christ, this line takes on a heavier load because our deliverance was sealed by His blood and was carried through fire. And the delight of the Father rested fully on the Him. And through His obedience, we are brought near. 

    David’s deliverance was with trembling ground and burning coals. Yet the fullness of rescue was still ahead. What he knew in part, we have seen in Christ. The hands that drew David out were the same hands that stretched wide upon the cross. The fire of judgment did not pass over sin—it was poured out. And the blood that made a sinner clean did not flow from an altar of stone. It was the blood of the Son.

    Every thunder of Sinai, every shaking in this psalm, reminds us of the gravity of justice. That justice was satisfied at Calvary. Christ stood in the path of wrath and did not turn away. Because He bore it all, we may now say with David, “He delivered me because He delighted in me” (v. 19)—not because we were worthy, but because He was.

    This is what it means to be brought out, to be lifted from the depths and made new. The flame no longer devours. It refines. The blood no longer condemns; it redeems. And the voice that once shook the heavens now speaks peace to the soul.

    There are verses in this psalm that resound both in Exodus and Revelation. God’s coming in smoke and fire (v. 8) mirrors the mountain in Sinai. His arrows and thunder (vv. 13–14) remind us of His judgment against the nations. And yet, all of that power was turned toward one aim, and that is to rescue. He makes darkness His canopy, but He never hides from His people. His justice remains unshaken, and His mercy never thins.

    For women who have been through much, whether in their bodies, their minds, or their memories, Psalm 18 may remind us that God does not merely observe; He intervenes. And when the soul looks back on the waters it once sank beneath, it may begin to understand the greatness of being brought out.

    David says, “You will light my lamp; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness” (v. 28). That is the peace after the storm. The pain may linger, but it no longer rules. The shadows may fall, but they no longer speak the last word. And the woman once broken by sorrow may now walk by the flame that God Himself has lit.