I’ve been procrastinating on writing my reflection on Psalm 17 as what sparked for me wasn’t really a reflection on the Psalm but questions about David instead. My ideal is to write on the Psalm but I can’t get away from the questions that sparked for me as I read it.

So here’s the deal, I’m just going to share the questions and if, at some point, a publishing house sees the genius of these reflections – I’m looking at you Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, Harper Collins or any other decent publisher with some smarts – then I’ll come back and rewrite this. If they don’t and it takes till after I pass away from this earth for my genius to be recognised, I’ll write something on Psalm 17 that can be released with the book of reflections that publishing houses will compete over once I’m gone.*

Ok, with that out of the way – David. Psalm 17 is written as a prayer and I was thinking through the prayers and songs he wrote and wondering which were kept private and which ones were public. Some of the stuff, as King, surely you wouldn’t want the public knowing and especially not your opponents. There are those times when he seemed to be overcome by the grief his enemies were putting him through or just the turmoil of life. I mean, would you really want everyone to know you spent all night crying on occasion? That’s not really going to be a sign of strength to those who want to take you down or a public who probably need to feel like you’ve got it together. Not that I’m against integrity, honesty and being vulnerable as a leader, but in his time I would imagine putting some of that stuff out publicly would have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

So there’s that stuff that feels private, but then there is the stuff that is asking God to take his enemies down. I can see reason to put that to music and have it public – some of it is quite passive aggressive and would have acted as significant threats to his enemies.

In the Psalms David constantly moves between stuff that’s really raw, gut wrenching and honest in it’s confessions and asks, to writing pieces that are filled with faith, confidence and an assuredness in God.

People seemed to adore him and after his death he seems to be the king Israel and much of Christianity has admired for generations – the ideal. What the Psalms give us is the very human David living his life out before God, but how much of that was public and how much of him are we actually seeing? I’m sure some good commentaries might tell me but I’m staring clear of them while I work my way through my own personal reflections.

I guess I’ll never know what he was really like, but knowing what Psalms were public and which were private would give a pretty good glimpse into what sort of leader he was.

Read more of my reflections on the Psalms.

Here’s why I’m walking this journey through the Psalms.

*For those who don’t know me, that was completely tongue-in-cheek… though I wouldn’t say no if a publishing house decided to take a punt on these reflections on the Psalms.