The Last Thing I Needed, The First Thing This Morning

Even in the depths of our despair, we can strengthen ourselves in God.   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   The great country singer/songwriter Chris Stapleton wrote a song entitled “The Last Thing I Needed the First Thing This Was to Have You Walk Out on Me.” It’s a song that goes from bad to worse. And so goes many country songs, right?   We all probably have our favorite sad country song where the story goes from bad to worse. And the reason is that we all can probably identify with that reality—life going from bad to worse. We know that pain. Have you ever had a time in your life where the situation went from bad to worse? I know you have. I know some of your stories. Some of the pain, heartache, and sadness. In our text today, it goes from bad to worse. “…the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb, and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire and taken captive the women and all who were in it both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength.” The Amalekites were a group of people that David and his band had previously been raiding the previous 16 months. No doubt that the Amalekite men have timed their attack against Ziklag to be at the same time when David and his men were supposed to be at war with the Philistine army. Put yourself in the scene. You are excited to return home and hug your family, letting them know you won’t be committing treason. And when you cross over the hills and look down on your town, you see the smoke rising from the lot of land where your house used to be. But not just your house…all the houses. All the barns. You race down as fast as you can to see what and who has been salvaged, until you realize, your town is a ghost town. No one anywhere to be found. Why? Because they have all been taken hostage. And so we have this scene. The men, once they discover that not only have their homes and livelihoods been taken from them, so have their loved ones. And they weep, and weep, and weep. Some of you know this exact kind of pain—weeping till you have no more strength, no more tears to cry. Not enough strength to pull yourself up from the ground. From bad to worse. “And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul.” From bad, to worse, to even worse. Someone, in their pain and misery, rises up, points a finger and a glare at David and says, “YOU! If it hadn’t been for you we wouldn’t be in this situation. You caused all of this! This happened because of your bright ideas. Because of your plans! We have lost our homes, our children, our families because of you.” Have you been there? Have you been in that place where it seemed like all strength was gone? What did you do? Maybe you just put your head down, stuff your emotions down deep and trudge along. Maybe you drink yourself into a stupor. Self-medicated How about busyness—how many of you fill up your life with busyness so you won’t have to deal with the pain, or dive into the social media world thinking that will fix it? How many of you put on a brave face in public but cry yourself to sleep at night? What do you do when you have no more strength? AND, what will David do in such a place, in the midst of such a demoralizing, desperate situation? Will he try to run away like he did from Saul? 1 Samuel 30:6 “BUT DAVID STRENGTHENED HIMSELF IN THE LORD HIS GOD.”