My Rock and Fortress

Someone might fairly say that a list of names for God does not answer anything. Rock, fortress, deliverer, God, strength, buckler, horn of salvation, high tower: it can sound like praise language, and praise language is easy to write when nothing in your life is on fire.

So read the heading the psalm gives itself, because it matters. It says David spoke the words of this song to the LORD on the day the LORD delivered him from all his enemies and from Saul. Every name on the list was paid for. Rock, fortress and high tower are not fancy words from a man at a desk. They describe the real ground David lived on during the years he hid in the wilderness of Judah. Staying alive there meant knowing which rocks gave cover and which heights an enemy could not climb. He is naming God after the ground that kept him alive.

Look at the word "my," repeated eight times: "my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." In the middle of the list David stops describing and commits himself: "in whom I will trust." That is the only thing in the verse that David does. Everything else tells us what God is, and that one phrase is what David does about it.

So do more than read the list; pray it. Stop after each name long enough to attach it to something real in your life. You might pray like this:

You are my rock in the decision I have to make this week. You are my fortress for this family, and my deliverer from the thing I keep going back to. You are my strength today, because I have none. You are my high tower when people are talking about me and I cannot answer.

Where a name will not attach to anything, stay there, because that is the place to pray longest. Every one of these names proved true for David on real ground, and the same LORD is listening to you. Amen.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 200 is Not a Word (1 Kings 18:21).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna