Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone.
When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families, they wept until they could weep no more. David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured. David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the Lord his God.
Then he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring me the ephod!†So Abiathar brought it. Then David asked the Lord, “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?â€
And the Lord told him, “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!†1 Samuel 30:1-8 (NLT)
David and the army had come home from war to find that an enemy has swept through their town destroying everything and all their wives and children gone. They gave in to their grief and frustration and wept. They wept, not quietly with a few tears on their cheeks, but wept themselves into exhaustion. The grief turned quickly from profound sadness to the men of David’s army wanting to stone him. David was the nearest and easiest target of their frustration, anger, and grief! Does David respond with persuasive words or vent his own anger? No. They actually might have thought that David was getting ‘weird’ on them!! Instead of responding in his flesh, David asks for his prayer shawl (ephod) and sits down to ask God what to do.
David unloaded his burden instead of taking on more weight. He prayed until he got his instructions from the One who sees the whole picture. Too often in my emotions, I make a mistake and get off on a very wrong path and the consequences just become dominoes that are difficult to stop. When “all hell breaks loose†in my life, stop! Find a quiet place, whether it is a closet, a chair in the corner, or my car, and ask God, “What should I do, God?†When the pressure is on – the prayer doesn’t have to be pretty or profound. “God, what should I do?†Prayer instead of panic. Faith instead of ‘Freaking Out’! The power of God comes in when I unload all my ‘stuff’ so there is space inside of me for more of God and there will be less of me!
But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.               1 John 4:4-6 (NLT)
When the going gets tough, the tough…pray! I must get into God’s way of doing things, not the world’s. Gosh, that’s hard. It often means that I don’t pick up the phone and call for my best friend’s opinion. She is an awesome woman of God and, after the fact, I have learned that God has tapped her on the shoulder telling her to pray for me. But she would tell you that she rejoices when she knows that I have turned to God first. My husband rejoices that God is my first call. They want me to grow in my relationship with God. They want God first in my life! I belong to God first.
