The God who girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect,
Psalm 18 is David's song after God rescued him from Saul and from every enemy. By verse 32 he stops describing the rescue and names its source: God armed him, and God shaped his road. (The writers quoted here use an older translation. It reads "makes my way perfect" where the ESV has "made my way blameless.")
A song written out of real experience
This line grew out of hard experience. One writer traces it back to the day Saul offered David his own armour for the fight with the Philistine — an offer that would have handed Saul the credit:
Saul could then have said, "It was my armour and my sword that was superior to the armour and the sword of the Philistine." But God watched over His servant who trusted Him, and He overruled everything. So David's soul stored up a blessed experience of God's faithfulness and power. At the right moment it came out as worship of God.
Strength supplied, not summoned
God does the arming. So the strength that meets our difficulties is not our own:
Christ's strength really does carry us through everything, no matter what the difficulties are. We shall feel them, we may groan under them; but when I can say with David, "It is God that girds me with strength" (Ps. 18), the enemy may come against me — "a bow of steel is broken by my arms." The Lord made him triumph over all.
That strength comes with a condition. It reaches the weak, not the self-sufficient:
The path of strength, then, is being made aware of our own weakness. Divine strength — which will never be a supplement to the strength of the flesh — may then come in. So there is entire dependence, and the positive coming in of Christ's power to work through us.
His perfect way, and mine
Two verses earlier David says God's way is perfect. Here he says the same of his own path, and the second follows from the first. Writing about believers beaten and jailed, one commentator holds the two together:
Look at those poor men, with the blood clotted on their backs, in a damp, dirty, dingy prison cell. Yet not a murmur — they are so far above self that they can pray and then praise. "As for God, His way is perfect" (Ps. 18:30-32). God says, "Now that you adore Me for all My ways, I will come in for you." "It is God that girds me with strength, and makes my way perfect." My way is in exact correspondence with His way. He goes on until the poor weak fingers are so strong that they can break the bow of steel. There is not a difficulty I am not superior to.
The road and the traveller
The verse gives two gifts, not one: strength for the man, and a prepared path. One writer applies David's words to Elijah, then draws a practical conclusion:
As David sang, so Elijah might also have sung, "It is God that girds me with strength, and makes my way perfect" (Ps. 18:32). Truly, our God always prepares the way for us, as He also prepares us for the way. Why then should we doubt Him? Though we may well distrust ourselves, not occasionally, but always.
First in the mouth of Christ
Commentators read this psalm as going beyond David to the Lord Jesus, who lived as a man wholly dependent on God:
As earlier in the psalm, the Lord Jesus speaks as the perfectly dependent Man. He says, "It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect" (v. 32). Just as God's way is perfect (v. 30), so He makes the way of the Lord Jesus, as Man, perfect.
Another writer calls the giver the Mighty One, and points to what His girding produces:
This Mighty One girds with strength the One whose place is still, therefore, one of loving service to Him. He makes His way perfect, as His own way is perfect. So His progress is uninterrupted.
Summary
- Cause. God's own way is perfect (v. 30). That is why a man's way can be perfect too: "my way is in exact correspondence with His way."
- Gift. God gives the strength; we never work it up. It never tops up the strength of the flesh. It comes in where a man learns his own weakness.
- Preparation. God prepares the way for us, and He prepares us for the way. So distrust yourself always, and never doubt Him.
- Pattern. The Lord Jesus speaks these words first, as the Man who depended fully on God. Nothing interrupts His progress.
- Result. Years of trusting God store up an experience that breaks out as worship at the right moment. And no difficulty is greater than the man God arms.