Psalm Meditation 1152 ¶Proper 11 ¶July 17, 2022 ¶Psalm 18 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+18&version=NRSVUE ¶This long psalm is as good a time as any to post a link instead of the psalm. I continue to encourage you to read the psalm first. ¶I once met someone who treated me as if I were the only person in the room. As I watched him greet other people at the event, I noticed he treated each of them with the same singular focus. I saw it and still see it as an enviable people skill. As David praises God in this psalm, it seems to be for that same focus on his need for deliverance. With everything else that demands God’s attention, there is time and energy to meet David in his time of great need. ¶It is easy, in times of stress and peril, to believe that we are alone. We imagine ourselves abandoned by any source of help on which we normally lean. If we do think to call on God, it is likely that we will not include the introductory praise of this psalm. It is also possible that the ascription of praise was not how David began his prayer in his darkest hour. It was an addition put in as the psalm was written down after the fact. ¶The important thing is to cry out to God when there is a need. It does not have to be ‘right,’ it does not have to be in formal biblical language, it doesn’t need language at all. The necessary part is to call on and rely on God for presence with us, no matter what. We may get the answer we were expecting, with all the T-s crossed and I-s dotted. We may get something radically different from what we asked for and expected God to do. Either way, we know that God is with us. ¶July 11, 2022 ¶LCM