Knee-Jerk God Reaction

Many of the psalms are songs that David wrote. I really like it when a psalm, like today’s reading (Psalm 18) has a little Storytellers like explanation before it of why and when it was written. Like today’s says,

For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. He sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:

Many of us sing great songs about God on Sunday mornings at our church services. What’s cool to me is that David sang them, actually he made them up, as a response to the things that happened to him in life. Something goes bad? “I’m gonna sing a song of complaint to God about it.” Something goes great? “I’m gonna sing a song of praise to God about it.” It’s like seeing God and His involvement was David’s knee-jerk reaction to everything that happened in life.

I just looked up that term, “knee-jerk reaction” which comes from the patellar reflex (the way your leg automatically extends if the ligament right around your knee gets hit). Interestingly, it turns out that the patellar reflex is what allows us to keep our balance and to walk without consciously thinking about each step.

Maybe the same is true spiritually. It’s when God becomes our knee-jerk reaction that we’ll start really walking with Him and start falling a little less…