Tag: David

Encouraging yourself in God

 

Reflections based on 1 Samuel 30.

‘David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.’

Encouragement gives us fresh hope, as well as the courage to carry on. David is a great biblical character to show us how to find encouragement in God. At this point in his story (covered by chapters 27, 29 and 30), he had decided to escape King Saul’s pursuit of him and went to live within the Philistines’ land. He ended up serving a Philistine king, which must have been bizarre for them all (as he had previously killed the Philistine giant Goliath)! Indeed, not all of the king’s men accept him and eventually David and his men are sent back to Ziklag, where their wives and children were. While they had been away, Amalekites had raided and taken their women and children captive.

At this point, David’s men begin to turn on him. What was David’s response? He didn’t despair, run or try to plead with them; we are told he ‘found strength in the Lord’ and then asked for the ephod so he could ask God what to do. How did he encourage himself in God? It isn’t spelt out in scripture but, given what is revealed about him in the psalms he penned, I think he probably brought to mind past examples of God’s faithfulness and stood firm on God’s promises. A look through psalms 34–41, for example, shows that David wasn’t afraid to be honest about his circumstances and emotions, and yet he always turned to praise, reminding himself how trustworthy and faithful God is. I love the tone of Psalm 37 – it is as if David is revealing what he has learned over the years: ‘I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken’ (v25). In other psalms he tells his downcast soul to look to God. I think we can learn a lot about how to encourage ourselves through reading the psalms he penned.

Meditation: Spend some time thinking about ways that you can encourage yourself in God today.

Undignified

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Reflections based on 2 Samuel 6:12–22.

‘Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might…
I will become even more undignified than this.’

Now. Be honest in your response to the question I’m about to ask you. Who did you relate to most when you read today’s passage? The carefree king, totally wrapped up and worshipping his God, or his wife, embarrassed by his ‘show’, who felt his behaviour should have been more befitting of his position? To put it in a modern-day context: how often have you looked at the slightly strange dancer in church, the flag wavers or ‘groaners’ and wished they weren’t in your congregation? Or been upset by something your church leader has suggested, or allowed, as it didn’t seem ‘respectful’ enough for church?

I want to challenge us all to consider whether we are too busy thinking about how others view us to worship freely – and whether we are impinging our notions of what worship should look like onto others. David wasn’t worried about anyone around him because he was concentrating on an audience of one – his Lord. Even when Michal challenged him over his actions he said that he’d be even more undignified, given the chance. What a great retort!

So when was the last time you felt abandoned in worship? As it should be out of the overflow of our hearts that we worship doesn’t it follow that sometimes we should get a little ‘crazy’, doing something out of our normal comfort zones?

Now I know that many of you reading this will be British, like myself, and I also know that I’m quite a reserved person (and enjoy the fact that I’m usually standing behind my keyboard in corporate times of worship!). But I think there is more to it than that. God wants our hearts so captivated by His truths, which transcend race, gender etc, that we can’t help but worship Him fully.

Prayer: I am sorry Lord that I can allow insecurities about what others may think of me to hold me back. Help me to learn how to be abandoned to You in worship.