When You Are Greatly Distressed

Deeper Reflection
WHEN DAVID and his men reached Ziklag only to see their home destroyed and their families disappeared (v.3), there was but one thing to do: wail – they “lifted their voices and wept” (v.4a). Their sorrows were so overwhelming that they “wept until there was no strength in them to weep” (v.4b). There must have been great fear and anxiety over what could have happened to their loved ones. The narrator tells us that the Amalekites did not kill them (v.2), but David and his men did not know this. But they did know that even if they were alive, as captives, “they could be sold for profit to merchants or others and would eke out the rest of their lives in isolation, bondage and misery”⁶. The troubling situation was so unbearable that “all the people were embittered” and “spoke of stoning” their leader (v.6). Isolated and alone, David became “greatly distressed” (v.6). Imagine the intensity of David’s emotions. What would you do if you were in David’s shoes? For David, he “strengthened himself in the LORD his God” (v.6). David “strengthened himself in the LORD” – in who God is, in God’s character. And this God is “his God”. God is a personal God to David. “In the LORD his God” is where the strengthening must begin: our relationship with God and our knowledge of God. And in this theological reality we strengthen ourselves by remembering, anchoring and trusting in the Word of God that never fails.

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⁶ Dale Ralph Davis, 310