Part 1: This Kind of Love
“I love you, Lord; you are my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;
my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.
I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.”
—Psalm 18:1–3 (NLT)
Before we dive in, let that opening line simmer in your spirit.
The depth.
The love.
The truth.
The raw, beautiful reality of it.
I can’t help but smile when I read those first three verses—over and over again.
“I love You, Lord… You are my strength.”
What a way to wake up your soul.
What a way to meet with God.
It’s not distant. It’s not scripted.
It’s connection. It’s closeness. It’s relationship.
So before we break it down, pause.
Breathe it in.
Let it stir something in you—because this is where everything begins.
Here’s what we can’t miss—
David didn’t write this from a palace.
He didn’t write it after the crown was placed on his head or when life was finally easy.
He wrote it after the cave. From the trenches.
He had been chased, hunted down, misunderstood, overlooked, and just plain exhausted. But after years of running, hiding, aching, and waiting on promises that felt like they might never come…..… he writes.
“I love You, Lord.”
What kind of love says that after everything he’d been through?
It’s the only time David opens a Psalm this way.
And the word he uses for “love” here? It’s not the usual kind.
It’s racham—a rare word that comes from the same root as a mother’s love for the baby still in her womb.
It’s not casual.
It’s tender. Protective. Deep.
A love that holds on when everything else falls apart.
If you’ve ever carried a child, you know this kind of love. It wraps around you before you ever hold them in your arms. That’s the depth David was reaching for.
And that’s what hit me: this wasn’t David reciting something he learned in Hebrew school. This was a man with history. Wounds and worship, all wrapped together.
And we’re just getting started…
Over the next few sections, we’re going to slow down and really sit with these verses—line by line. Not to analyze. But to understand. To let the truth behind each phrase settle into our spirit, brand our hearts, and become something we actually live.
This isn’t about head knowledge—it’s about letting the Word read us as we read it.
Ready…..here we go.
“You are my strength”
He doesn’t say, “Thank you for helping me be strong.”
He says, “You ARE my strength.”
There’s a big difference here. Because sometimes we try to muscle our way through life (guilty as charged)—just keep it together, stay busy, slap on a verse and go.
But David had learned what I’m continually learning:
I’m not strong without Him.
And I was never meant to be.
“You’re my rock, my fortress, my savior”
This is what David had come to know by experience AND relationship:
When the ground gives out... God doesn’t.
“Rock” isn’t just a Bible word—it’s what your feet land on when the rest of your life has fallen apart.
“Fortress” isn’t a warm fuzzy castle—it's the high place the enemy can’t touch.
And “Savior”? That’s what you call Someone who pulled you out when you were in way too deep.
“My place of safety”
David didn’t say God was a safe place.
He said He was his place of safety.
That hits different when you’ve lived through trauma.
When you’ve had trust broken.
When you’ve been waiting for someone to show up and not walk away.
David found that in God.
Not in people. Not in kingship.
Not even in himself.
Let’s just pause for a second...
Because this kind of love?
It doesn’t show up overnight.
It grows in caves. It forms in the wilderness.
It’s watered by tears and held together by “God, I trust You” prayers prayed through gritted teeth.
This is what makes faith real.
Not the highlight reel.
But the history.
The backstory that no one else sees.
David loved God because they’d been through it together.
And somehow—even in the mess, in the fear, in the long silences where it looked like God had disappeared—David didn’t harden.
He softened.
He clung.
And that gets me—because let’s be honest, when we hear someone’s called to be king, we think of palaces and power. Crowns. Privilege. A life of ease.
David was probably around 15 years old when Samuel anointed him. A teenager.
And maybe, for a second, he thought: This is it. The throne is coming. The promise is on its way.
But instead of royalty, he got rejection.
Instead of robes, he got caves.
Instead of celebration, he got chased.
For the next 12 to 15 years, David would live as a fugitive. Running. Hiding. Waiting.
Not because he’d done something wrong, but because of the call on his life.
And it’s in those years—not the throne years—that this love was formed.
The kind of love that says:
“I trust You, even when I can’t see how this ends.”
“I worship You, even while I’m hurting and confused.”
“I love You, not because it’s easy… but because You’ve never left.”
That’s what makes these verses in Psalm 18 so powerful.
This wasn’t just poetic language.
It was the language of relationship.
And the language of love..
Let’s not skip this...
The most powerful part of this whole section isn’t the rescue.
It’s the relationship.
This is what I keep coming back to:
If we don’t build relationship with God in the quiet (the secret place)—
we won’t trust Him in the storm.
We’ll panic.
We’ll reach for control.
We’ll sink—just like Peter did, with Jesus right in front of him—because our faith wasn’t anchored in love or trust, just familiarity.
David could say all of this because he didn’t just believe in God—he knew Him.
And he had chosen, over and over again, to love Him back.
Truth to Hold On To:
You don’t get this kind of love from Sunday check-ins.
You get it from battlefields, back roads, and broken places.And you don’t have to have it all figured out.
You just have to keep coming back.
That’s what builds history with God.
That’s where wide open spaces begin.
Personal Application: From Wilderness to Wide Open
We always think the good stuff—the breakthroughs, the anointing, the calling—happens on the mountaintop.
You know, the after moment. The crown. The victory. The “finally made it” part.
But that’s not where David’s love for God was shaped.
It didn’t form in the palace—it formed in the wilderness.
Because the wilderness strips you.
It pulls away the noise, the approval, the performance.
And it’s there—in the hidden, lonely, quiet places—where something deeper happens.
That’s where relationship grows.
That’s where faith roots itself in something real.
That’s where “I love You, Lord” becomes more than a lyric—it becomes a lifeline.
The beauty of Psalm 18 is that it doesn’t start on the other side of victory.
It starts with a man who walked through hell and still said,
“You are my rock. My fortress. My hiding place.”
And this is where it all comes together.
Because it’s that kind of relationship that leads us into the wide open spaces.
Not easy spaces.
But free ones.
Spaces where you're no longer ruled by fear or striving—because your roots go deep.
Spaces where you’ve learned who God really is—not from a platform, but from the inside of a cave.
Spaces where the Word isn’t just something you read… it’s something you know.
So here’s the question:
What wilderness are you in right now that God might be using to deepen your roots?
What if the very thing you’re begging Him to take away… is the place He’s inviting you to meet Him?
14-Day Challenge:
Start your morning with Psalm 18:1–3.
Just to get it in your heart and mind.
Read it out loud.
Say it until your heart starts believing it.
Let it rewire the way you start your day.
Let’s Pray:
Lord, I love You.
Not just because of what You’ve done, but because of who You’ve been to me—
in the dark, in the waiting, in the places no one else saw.
You are my strength when I have none.
You are my steady ground when everything around me feels shaky.
You are my rock—solid, unmoving, sure.
My fortress when I need a place to hide.
My Savior, when I can't save myself.
You are the One I run to.
The One who shields me.
The One who holds me up when fear is louder than faith.
You are the power that rescues me.
You are my place of safety.
And when I cry out to You—You don’t ignore me.
You hear me.
You move.
You come.
So today, I say it again from a real place, a raw place, a worshipping place:
I love You, Lord.
You are my strength.
Amen.
Next: Part 2 - When the Grave Had a Hold on Me… But God.
Because even when it feels like death has wrapped itself around you—God hears. God moves. God shows up.