Psalm 18: I Love You

Psalm 18 is by far the longest of the Psalm’s that we have come to thus far, it’s also much different. There are no appeals being made, no complaints being lodged, no petitions being offered. It’s not just that David has had all his needs met, or has seen all his enemies removed, it’s that David has shifted his attention from what he needs from God to what he has in God. There are 50 verses filled with praise, with beautiful descriptions of God’s character and God’s actions, but I only want to focus on the first words that David wrote to God, “I love you . . .”

Our modern religion is filled with declarations of love for God. We sing it in songs, we hear it prayed, even spoken often, sometimes even randomly. Telling God that we love Him is pretty common place for us. The truth is, in our culture and in our language, saying that we love someone, or something is more than common, it’s constant. We love television shows, coffee shops, sports teams, brands of clothing, three-day weekends, you get what I mean, we refer to anything we enjoy as something we love. I can’t speak to ancient culture in contrast to ours, I’m not well-versed enough, but what I can say, is that in the Bible I don’t see common verbal expressions of love for God.

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, commanded Israel to love the LORD their God with all their heart, soul and strength, a command that Jesus would later call the “greatest commandment”, but we don’t see the people responding with songs or expressions of love. Israel sang praise, they gave God glory, they spoke of His greatness, they acknowledged His great love for them, but we don’t have many examples of them responding with what we might see as affection. I’m not sure why this is, and again, I don’t want to try to make a guess, but what I do want to do is to see how important this makes David’s words in the beginning of Psalm 18.

Psalm 18 is also found, nearly word for word, in I Samuel 22, near the end of David’s life. I know that many will say that we are not sure of the timing of I Samuel 22, but look at the heading here, “on the day when the LORD rescued him from the hand of ALL his enemies, and from the hands of Saul.” It is my belief that this Psalm was sung by David, to God, as David neared the end of his life, not as he was just beginning his rule as king over Israel. I believe that David sang this song after the defeat of the Philistines and other Gentile nations, after the uprisings of both Absalom and Sheba and clearly, after the death of Saul. I believe that as an old man, as David looked back over his life, as he saw how God had always been present, had never forsaken him, always listened to his cries, his complaints and his praises, that David, was overwhelmed with the constant nearness of God and the overflow of his heart simply said, “I love You, O LORD . . .” I believe that this was an intimate and personal song of David to God, that became a congregational song of Israel. I believe that David said those words carefully, emotionally and seriously. I believe that the man after God’s own heart, saw the fullness of God’s heart and his own heart overflowed with the character He had found in God, love.

My point in all of this is to say that we are commanded to love God with our obedience, but we should learn how to be careful to sing our love for God with seriousness. I imagine David, the warrior king, becoming choked with emotion, either pushing back tears or letting them roll down his cheeks and singing with broken voice, “I love You, O LORD . . .” I’m no warrior and I’ll never be king, but that’s how I want to express my love to God. I don’t want my words to be trite, I don’t want to lump my love for God in with my love for my wife, my children, my church, UVA basketball or fried catfish—I want my love for God, even my expressions of love for God to stand apart, I want them to come from the depths of my heart, not the nearness of my lips. It’s not that I want to tell God I love Him less often, I want to tell Him more truthfully, more seriously, more intimately. I want my expressions of love for God to be worthy of His expressions of love for me. “But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” When God wanted to say, “I love you”, He gave His only begotten son to die from love for sin. When I want to say “I love you” to God I want it to be thought out, I want it to be concentrated upon, I want it to have my full attention and come from my full affection, I want it to be true.

By the time David said these words he had conquered enemies, lost friends, mentors and children, he had sinned miserably and been forgiven completely. He had seen the fulfillment of promises and he had been told no to requests that he desperately desired and as he looked back on the whole of it all, his heart responded with three words of joy and pain, three words that encompassed not just who God had been to him, but who David had become in God. God had expressed His love to David in such a rich way that all David could do was now give his love to God. That’s what should be happening when we say the words that David said, it should be the fulfillment of all that God has done, it should be the announcement that He alone has possession of our heart, it should be the fulfillment of our surrender to Him and of His possession of us. Before you say those three words to God again, slow down with me, take stock, consider who you are speaking of and speaking to, and then, from the deepest place of your heart and your life, let what has been poured into you come flowing out of you. It’s more than three little words, it’s an announcement that He has triumphed over everything, not for me, but everything in me. “I love You, O LORD  . . .”