ON THE VANGUARD

PSALM 18 part 1
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, without turning back until they were destroyed. I crushed them, so that they can’t get up; they have fallen under my feet.”
Psalm 18:37-38

A few days back I shared that my dad had served in the military. More specifically, he was in the Navy during a portion of the Vietnam War. Growing up I remember him sharing stories of his Navy days with us. He served aboard the USS Lexington and USS Yorktown and was fortunate enough to be aboard the vessel that retrieved Apollo 8 in December of 1968. I still remember cleaning out the garage one Saturday and seeing a photo of the astronauts and ship’s captain sitting at the dinner table aboard the Yorktown. I also remember dad showing us his homemade reel movies and slide shows of the F-14 Tomcats taking off and landing, as well as other plans. As a child I looked up to my dad as a hero, and now I wish I could have a few of those times again.
But my dad was a hero. He was a warrior, trained in battle and ready to take his place on the vanguard. He had been through his Boot Camp days in San Diego and received the training he would need to take those first steps in military life. He had done the running and pushups, but he had also got the haircut and been humbled by his commanding officers. And in reading Psalm 18, we see an account of David, in essence, putting his men through Boot Camp. It is in verses 27-38 that David lays out six essentials of a warrior that we would do well to learn ourselves, as we too are in a daily battle against our foe.
The first essential is found in verse 27, where David states, “People afflicted, you save; but haughty eyes, you humble.” As my dad would attest to, it is the job of the superiors in Boot Camp to make you feel like scum, or lower than scum. This humility and breaking of pride has to be done before the soldier can be rebuilt in the right image. David learned this and now was teaching his men as he expressed to them also that they needed to be humbled. Pride was the first recorded sin in Genesis, when the serpent expressed that they could be like God. This idea puffed them up. We do not need puffing; we need humility. Too many people are already puffed up.
David’s second and third lessons in Boot Camp are seen in verse 28, stating, “For you, Adonai, light my lamp; Adonai, my God, lights up my darkness.” What David is first trying to do here is explain to his men that passion is needed. Light my lamp is defined as get me on fire. Without a passion the soldiers would grow weary and would not take the fight seriously. The soldiers would begin to compromise or cut concerns because the drive was no longer in them. So here, David was pushing his men to keep that flame alive, keep the fire burning, and keep the passion alive. In the next piece of the passage, though, David adds that God lights up the darkness. This darkness in the light is discipline. In a world so filled with sin, we need to be the beacons of light and truth that dispose the darkness. This comes only by living in obedience to disciplines of God.
As I close for today, I want to urge you to embrace these first three essentials. Pride is an enemy that hooks us all in. All it takes is one moment where we see ourselves better than we should and that pride becomes a monster we wrestle to tame. But, in seeing ourselves as David warns, as God sees us, as one who can do nothing without Him, we embrace the first essential. Once pride is identified, then we can move forward in grasping the passion in the fight again and bringing the light to the darkness. Let us enter Boot Camp with the right heart and mindset, and allow ourselves to be a Mighty Warrior of Adonai just as David’s army would become known as David’s mighty men.