Deeper Reflection
WHEN WE ARE DOWN in “the darkest valley” (Psa 23:4, NIV) “walking in darkness” and have “no light” (Isa 50:10a), it helps a great deal to look back at those God-moments in our lives, and find assurance to look up and trust in God and rely on His name (who God is) with confidence in our adversities (Isa 50:10b). God does speak to us through this looking back. Sheer tiredness must have dogged David in his almost non-stop running away from Saul’s relentless pursuit of his life and “we cannot help but understand how Philistia seemed to spell deliverance”²⁷ (1 Sam 27:1). But the narrator seems to tell us in the context of David’s discipleship journey thus far that David could have looked back at those God-moments in his life and rest his security in God alone, and not Philistia. David could look back at how he inquired of God about protecting Keilah from the Philistines and God answered him and gave him victory (1 Sam 23:1-5). David should recall how “Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand” (1 Sam 23:14). David should remember: When he was surrounded by Saul at a mountain, under Divine Providence an urgent message of a Philistine raid on Israel led Saul to abandon his pursuit after him (1 Sam 23:26-28). David should find assurance in God’s word to him through Jonathan: “Do not be afraid…my father will not find you…you will be king over Israel” (1 Sam 23:16-17).

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²⁷ Dale Ralph Davis, 284