And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.
1 Samuel 23:16 (NIV)

As the young woman approached me, I could tell she was distraught. Her countenance. Her body language. She was not herself.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said.

“Just okay?”

The tears began to flow as she described an unexpected curve ball that life had thrown her that week. Suddenly everything in life felt uncertain and scary for her and her family.

I listened quietly as she poured out her anxiety and her fears. I had no great answers to her dilemma. There was no quick fix in my personal tool bag. In the end of our conversation I simply reminded her that I loved her. I encouraged her to trust God to provide and lead — because He is faithful. I prayed for her and her family.

In yesterday’s post/podcast David, the outlaw king, was the man in need of refuge who became a refuge for others. In today’s chapter, I’m reminded that David is still in need of refuge. He finds it in his bff — Jonathan — the son of the very man who desperately wants David dead.

“Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God.”

As I meditated on the text, I couldn’t help but notice the wording. Jonathan did not strengthen David for God. He strengthened David in God.

There is a difference.

Along my journey, many people have tried to strengthen my in myself:
“You’re strong enough.”
“You can do this.”
“Believe in yourself.”

There is certainly value in self-confidence, but wilderness seasons eventually expose its’ limits. David’s circumstances had not improved.

Saul still wanted him dead.
Keilah had betrayed him.
The Ziphites would betray him.
He still had no throne.
Nothing changed externally.

Yet Jonathan leaves this last recorded meeting between the two friends, and David continues his wilderness journey.

Why?

Because his strength was renewed in God.

I find it striking that one of the greatest gifts Jonathan ever gave David was not protection, strategy, money, or political influence. It was presence. He entered the wilderness and reminded his friend of what was true. And there’s an important reminder for me in Jonathan’s actions.

Sometimes the most Christlike thing I can do is simply walk into another person’s wilderness and remind them that God has not forgotten them. Sometimes, when I am the one hiding among the rocks, what I need most is not a solution. I need someone to help me find strength in God again.

That strength may not remove me from the wilderness. But it will carry me through until I reach my own Rock of Escape.

By the way, I continued to keep tabs on the young woman. She didn’t need me to fix things for her. She needed my presence, and my pointing her back to a faithful God who can be trusted with the story he’s authoring in her life and the lives of her family. It was just a few weeks later that God provided her with a solution that put her family in an even better place than they’d been before life had thrown her that wicked curve ball.

God is faithful. Trust Him.

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