The Strength of God and the Myth of Self-Reliance

“I love you, O LORD, my strength.”

So wrote David in Psalm 18:1.

Here are a few thoughts on what this means.

God is the great Provider. He is the source of everything I need to live and breathe and walk and talk. He gives His strength to me every day. He enables me to wake up in the morning, and He keeps my motor running all day long. I cannot do anything without this sustaining grace. As Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

I have lived much of my life without this awareness of God as my source of strength. For many years I was a practical atheist, knowing that God existed but living as if He did not. I ignored Him by rejecting Him and suppressing the truth about Him in unrighteousness, per Romans 1:18. “Jesus be gone!” I proclaimed. And so He was. I made Him vanish from my life so I could live in a fool’s paradise of self-deception, a slave who only thought he was free.

When I experienced success, I gave myself the praise. How easy it is for us to take the credit! After all, I did something, right? I studied hard and earned that degree. I worked hard and got that promotion. I exercised myself to the point of exhaustion and finished the race.

Ah, how easy it is to look at life with the eyes of fallen flesh.

Yes, we are capable of great things. But where do we get the resources? Who made us and put us here? Who gave us the breath of life and the opportunity to get up day after day with good health and ample provision of food, clothing, and shelter? Who endowed us with a mind to think and legs to walk and hands to use?

Oh, how grateful I am that God rescued me from such a distorted perspective. He opened my eyes to see Him as He really is. Today, the LORD is my strength. “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer . . . my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalm 18:2-3).

David wrote those words “on the day when the LORD rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul” (from the heading of Psalm 18).

God has rescued me from all my enemies, including enemy #1 – me, my pride, and the delusions of grandeur that dominate my heart.

Oh, Lord, please keep them at bay today. Save me again from the myth of self-reliance. By the power of your Spirit and for the glory of King Jesus, Amen.