“3 So David and his men came to
the city, and behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons,
and their daughters, were taken captive. 4 Then David and the people that were
with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
5 And David’s two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and
Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. 6 And David was greatly distressed;
for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was
grieved, and every man for his sons and daughters: but David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. 7 And David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son,
I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod
to David. 8 And David enquired at the Lord…” (1st Samuel 30:3-8)
It’s
not surprising that for 365 days life just happens…and when it happens it
doesn’t discriminate. You come home from work one day, pink-slip in hand, pick
up the television remote only to realize that the television is not working…
and the reason it’s not working is because there is no electricity. Suddenly
the phone rings; its little Billy’s school, seems he had an accident during
recess and had to be rushed to the nearest hospital. You run out to the car
only to see it being towed away by the repo-man. But not to worry, the phone
rings again and your wife is on the other end letting you know that she’s
already at the hospital with Billy; and although you can breathe easier you can’t help but to worry just a little.
So you
walk over to your favorite recliner to take a load off, but there’s a knock at
the door. The gentleman on the other side identity’s himself and then hands you
an envelope… your wife has just served you with divorce papers. That explains
the thin look in the closets and both bedrooms, and you thought little Billy
finally remembered not to leave his toys scattered all over the place. You
reach for the phone and begin to dial your wife’s cell, but all you get is
dead air space because just that quickly your services have been terminated.
No;
this is not a calgone moment…you are
in a state of Ziklag and everything in your life is heading south. You decide
to walk to the neighborhood bar for a few drinks and end up closing the place.
As you semi-stagger homeward the thought comes to mind to stop at the ATM.
No
sooner than you withdraw your money some masked man whose name is not The Lone Ranger or Zorro puts a gun in your
back and demands that you hand over all of your cash. You say to yourself; man
I was gonna pay my best friend Jimmy back with that money. Wasted and dejected you head homeward.
As you
draw near to your house you notice someone parked in the driveway. It’s Jimmy,
your bosom buddy and life-long pal; he wants his money. You try and explain to
him how you were just jacked at the ATM, but he’s not in the mood to listen
because he’s in a financial jam and his wife is also threatening to leave him.
Jimmy wants to fight; he warns that if you don’t have his money tomorrow there
will be trouble and leaves you sitting on your front stoop with your head in
your hands wondering what to do next….
In that
moment you think you’ve hit rock bottom but truthfully speaking, the bottom has
fallen.
This scenario
or something similar has happened to all of us at one time or another. Even
today someone’s mortgage has been foreclosed on, car repossessed, services
discontinued, a loved-one hospitalized, the dog ran away and the cat was run
over…society calls this “Murphy’s Law”
meaning whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
In
society when the bottom falls it is customary to surrender to the
circumstances. One popular solution is to drown yourself and your
bottomless troubles in the alcoholic beverage of choice, or just fix it all
with narcotics; some have even contemplated suicide. Neither of these solutions
will rid you of the problem, in fact they will only lead to more bottom falling incidents.
When
David hit rock-bottom he was at his wits end; family taken into captivity, and
his buddies threatening to kill him because they followed him into the same
situation. David could have taken matters into his own hand from the start, I
mean the man had just cried until he couldn’t cry anymore, why not wield his
sword against his own men and afterwards head out by himself to search for his
family.
The
real question here is; what would he have gained by pursuing that line of
thinking? Better yet; why take matters into his own hand?
Proverbs
16:25 states – “There is a way that
seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are ways of death…”
David
did the proper thing; he sought the Lord for instruction.
One of
the requests that Jesus taught his disciples to make when they pray was “give us this day our daily bread…”
this should tell you God already knew about the dilemma that you are going
through beforehand, but he’s waiting for your permission before he steps in to
lead the way out.
“He’s
a Gentleman”
More
importantly, a relationship must be established between you and the Lord which
moves you to trust that he’ll deliver you from all of your troubles. There is
no time to fear what’s happened and there most certainly is no time to fear in
man.
“The
fear of man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be
safe.” Proverbs
29:25
By
seeking counsel from the Lord David was able to employ a strategy that allowed him
and his men to pursue and destroy their enemy; and ultimately recover everyone
and everything that was stolen from them.
Eventually
all of us will experience those moments when the bottom falls. Life happens….
When it does you can cry until there are no more tears left. But the moment
your tear-ducts dry up, that’s not the time to get high only to be brought low.
“CALL ON THE LORD!”
Thank
God for putting the floor back under your feet!
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