this one really is a short one… so let me include it:

1 Save me, O God, by your name;
    vindicate me by your might.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
    listen to the words of my mouth.

3 Arrogant foes are attacking me;
    ruthless people are trying to kill me—
    people without regard for God.

4 Surely God is my help;
    the Lord is the one who sustains me.

5 Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
    in your faithfulness destroy them.

6 I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
    I will praise your name, Lord, for it is good.
7 You have delivered me from all my troubles,
    and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.

this is a psalm David put together when he was on the run from Saul.

i really love the first line, ‘Save me, O God, by your name’  as names were really important in the Bible. the name expresses the heart and character of the person and so David here is appealing to the God who saves.

often the name we use for God displays how we view Him, which is perhaps why it can be good to use multiple names and titles – the idea of God as King for example conveys a completely different message than the idea of God as Father, and God as Saviour seems a lot more loving and reachable than Omnipotent God. it is important to realise that He is all of these things and so not to get trapped in one name or idea of God at the exclusion of all others. it is good to keep in mind just how much bigger than us God is so that when we don’t necessarily understand all that is going on, it makes sense that we shouldn’t, and that’s okay. it would be far more distressing if we could wrap our minds around a God who created the Universe in a sentence or breath.

which all brings me back to one of my favourite passages in Ephesians 3 which gives us a glimpse of the bigness of our God:

14′ For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.’

or as David writes in this Psalm, ‘I will praise your name, Lord, for it is good.’

[To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]