No One Could Know

Have you ever had a bad day? How about a bad week? Or a bad … year?

2014 has been one tough nut for the Gray family. Thankfully, we know a way out, and in 2015, we believe we will recover all.

The greatest King in the Bible, David, experienced compound grief too. While away on a mission, David’s enemy armies (plural) invaded a city in his kingdom. It was no peaceful election. The armies burned the city of Ziklag to ruins.  David and his countrymen experienced devastation when they returned to see every possession was turned to ash.

As anyone who’s ever survived a fire can attest, that alone would be enough to warrant PTSD counseling, but their situation worsened when they realized that David’s wives, and every other woman and child and person left in the surprised city had been kidnapped!

1 Samuel 30:4 Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.

Just when David thought it couldn’t get any worse, “…David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters.” (Verse 6a)

His own men turned against him, as if he was the bad guy. Everyone was looking for someone to blame. What should he have done? He gave himself time to grieve, but he didn’t wallow in the mullygrubs, lest depression set in. The Bible tells us that David had a heart after God, which means his relationship with God came first in everything — even bad things. Here’s the key to climbing out of a bad day:

“David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (Verse 6b)

Sure a great sleep, or an intense work out can alleviate stress, but David knew that there’ was only one thing he could do that would actually remedy that predicament: God. He also knew that he could trust in God to come through.

Verse 8: David inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.

Step 1: He inquired of the Lord.

Step 2: He listened to what God had to say.

Step 3: He was willing to obey, no matter the cost.

Step 4: He made a plan.

Step 5: He followed through.

Then to the army of David’s surprise, their paths crossed with an enemy soldier who’d been left behind because he was sick. The man showed David and his crew where the others were.

Verse 18-19 So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all.

They recovered all, just like you and I will if we follow David’s antidote.

My mom never allowed me to host a pity party. “There’s always someone worse off than you are,” she’d say. One sad day when contemplating those who had life worse than I did, I realized that no one had it worse than Jesus Christ when He gave up His own life for the sake of ours. But He didn’t stop on the cross. He was raised to new life again only three days later – and raised us up with Him!

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:4-10

So how do we “walk in them”? By faith. Simply by trusting in Him, and obeying what He puts in our heart to do. I don’t know about you, but I’m about to recover some things, because I wholly believe that “greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world,” and “He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the Day of Jesus Christ.”