Written by Paul J Bucknell on February, 20, 2025

Psalm 20:7 Rightly Handling Our Successes - How do we avoid becoming prideful?

“Some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God.”
(Psalm 20:7 NASB)

By God’s grace, David had recently won a significant. Psalm 20 celebrates this victory. However, we must be attentive to the troubles he encountered. Keywords like banners (v.5), counsel (v.4), help (v.2), strength (v.6), victory (v.5), horses (v.7), and chariots (v.7) point out the severity of the crises that he faced.

We are often so consumed with overcoming our challenging circumstances that we rarely respond appropriately to our successes, which inflate our egos and make us arrogant. What victories have we seen? Acing an exam? Are you getting many compliments about our work? Having a bright child? These experiences are not as risky as fighting an enemy in battle, but we all face arrogance—our greatest enemy. Psalm 20:7 illustrates David's better approach that enhances our lives and honor God.

Observe Our Life’s Circumstances

God uses crises to make and break us. Fortunately, King David illustrates how we can curb our focus on accomplishments by highlighting God’s triumph. Though David had horses and chariots, they did not save him. The Lord constantly works with His people when they are having difficulties in helping them.

For this reason, David and we, must learn to boast in God, who provides victory. We must know and relearn this in all different life contexts. This will enable us to find greater joy in our God and to develop our ability to praise God.

The sooner we learn this lesson, the quicker we can accept our challenging circumstances, rely on God, and watch how He helps us. Events are always composed of individual experiences to teach us to rely on God better. Our Lord seeks to make each of our lives a marvelous monument of praise to Him. He wants us to “boast in the name of the Lord, our God” (v.7).

Identify Our Gifts

Stressful moments cause us to consider what our most valuable resources are that can help us cope with life. For David, it was a threatening battle. For us, it could be a miscarriage, the search for a spouse, an unfaithful spouse, finding a decent-paying job, or improving health. And so the list goes on. But those are only circumstances. How do we handle them? We might take a course on time management, but at other times, we seek help from others. David saw all his men, leadership, horses, weapons, etc. They all contributed to his success, but God is the One who worked through them.

People pride themselves on their strength, wealth, and power. This is the world’s way, resulting in poor attitudes—none of which genuinely give glory to God. They focus on what makes them better and able to win.

Some take this mindset right into church and business meetings. Sibling rivalry, indeed all rivalry, rides on comparison. When we compare ourselves to others, we dishonor God. We think that comparing ourselves with others gives us value. Pride emerges when we emphasize our own accomplishments to resolve the crisis. We are better, stronger, smarter, clever, etc.

We often misapply our reasons for success as that which makes us a great person. People are desperate to make their lives significant, which comes from being better than others. Victory implies this: one won, the other lost.

Acknowledge Our God-given Gifts

Instead of focusing inward on ourselves, we focus on and appreciate the gifts God has given us. We observe His purpose for our lives and dedicate our achievements to His glory. True significance cannot be found in mere actions but in fulfilling God’s calling.

David’s shared insight: “Some boast in chariots and some in horses,” reveals how he and we must decide between self-aggrandizement or an honest assessment, acknowledging God’s key part in our victory. God wants us to have victory but not for us to suffer this delusion of self-greatness. We are no longer useful to Him when we are arrogant. He can use us, but we have broken that vital dependence on God by concluding that we are better due to our victory.

Maybe we did win, but the victory, as David rightly reminds us, came from the Lord. He refused to attribute the victory to himself, his possessions, or his position. This is not to say David wasn’t handsome, strong, witty, and extremely capable. He was, but David didn’t even mention this in Psalm 20.

The making of a godly person comes not from one’s unique and qualifying gifts but from how he handles his crises and victories. Whether teen, mom, or manager, we will all face crises. What do we do with them? Or perhaps most importantly, how do we handle the victory? It’s fine to identify and express our hopes. “May He grant you your heart’s desire” (Psalm 20:4), but do we, through faith, see God’s complete part in this? Our boasting must be in the Lord our God.

Honor God Through Remembering Him

The original Hebrew of Psalm 20:7 does not contain the words boast, praise, trust, or depend. However, these words can be added to make the verse meaningful. A more literal translation of David’s poetic verse is: “Some in chariots, some in horses, but we ourselves remember the Name of the Lord our God.” The only verb in verse 7 means to remember or recall (zikar), a word used over 500 times in the Old Testament.

Psalm 20:7’s usage of ‘remember’ helps us know, as this Psalm does, how one thinks about one’s accomplishments matters much. We should learn to recognize God’s role in our success. Trust and boasting are other words conjuring up this proper recognition of God.

Ultimately, our lives are a collective series of experiences, where we better understand our lives and how God has utilized our situations to know Him better. Acknowledging God’s guidance allows the entire glory to return to Him, establishing an enriching cycle animated by His glory and praise (Rom 11:36). It’s not about being superior to others but understanding how God works through us. All we possess comes from God, who transforms our gifts into a special blessing, resulting in profound joy and contentment.

Discover God’s Purpose for Our Lives

Through this retraining of our minds and analyses of our circumstances in light of God, we build up our faith. God made us and equipped us. He has His unique purposes for our lives.

For example, I started this ministry (BFF) 25 years ago in 2000. I can focus on our different accomplishments, but it’s all vain and empty if I don’t revel in and glorify God’s part in this: including the original vision, giving my wife and me faith to trust Him, daily inspiration to write, giftedness to handle codes and computer programs, and a wonderful church and family. God made me this way. God helps me each day. The good is all from God—His wisdom, strength, provision, guidance, and help. “The Lord God is my strength!” (Hab 3:19)

Mentor Others

As believers, we can also use this crucial lesson to guide us on how to work with others. God orchestrates the circumstances for all His children. Each believer is part of His training program. Parents, for example, tend to boast of their children’s accomplishments. Instead, help your children to focus on how God aids them to do well, whether in academics, relationship building, sports, etc. Train them with this mentality. It will do them well, as it did with David. Coach them by reminding them how God has uniquely made them. The same is true for others. It’s hard to see others going through trials, but if we are by their side, we can pray and perhaps share a story of how God used a trial to help us grow. Deepen their awareness of how God works through it all, thus causing them to build up their understanding of how God works in their lives.

The more we look at our circumstances and observe His contributing part, the more praise we have for Him. We recall His wonders by how He does things. Let me summarize these helpful life principles we learn from David and Psalm 20:7.

Summary

Our good and bad circumstances are entirely in the Lord’s hands. As believers, we can place our complete trust in Him.
The problematic situations—the stresses, trials, and persecution—force us to gather our resources, including our minds, emotions, finances, and relationships, to endure and succeed.
When we succeed in our plans, we will be tempted, like the world, to think great about ourselves. As God’s people, we must reject such self-centric delusions.
Instead, we rightly remember the Lord’s marvelous hand in preparing everything we have and are—our talents, possessions, guidance, and circumstances.
The more we connect God’s gracious dealings to our success, the greater our praise and joy will rise to Him.
We can escape pride’s clutch by giving the Lord praise.
God made us to get our chief significance from Him and His kind dealings with us, not our successes. This enables us to grow strong even in our weaknesses, losses, and times without (Phil 4:12-13).
We must take every opportunity to train others to develop a godly understanding of their lives, countering the pervasive secular mindset.

Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we in God!

Study Questions on Psalm 20:7

Contrast how the world treats success with how a godly person handles it. (Examine Psalm 20:7)
What are some unique gifts God has given you?
Give an example of when you misinterpreted your success, considering it apart from God. What was the result?
Do you find challenging life situations as platforms for God to train you better? Or do you complain?
Provide an example where you rightly linked God’s grace in your life, enabling you to accomplish His purposes.
Retrace your life journey and connect it through the times and places you have gone through this cycle of consciously witnessing God’s goodness and power.
Can you remember how you counseled someone, reminding them to observe and praise God’s part in their success? Provide the details.