David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.
1 Samuel 30:6 (NIV)

I was recently a guest on the Wake Up the Lions! podcast with Rory Paquette (the episode has yet to be published). Rory asked me a lot of questions about the chapter-a-day journey and my 20 years doing this blog and podcast. As the interview went on, he asked me about what it’s like going back over the same chapters across the years. He asked me what changes.

The answer is simple. The Word doesn’t change, but I do. Each time I approach a chapter for the third, or fifth, or sixth time in 20 years – I’m at a different place in my life journey and my spiritual journey. The words meet me where I am in the moment — to provide me what I need at that particular waypoint in the journey. It might be the same as it was years ago — or it might be something completely different.

Today’s chapter is a great Exhibit A.

As I mentioned a week or so ago, our local gathering of Jesus’ followers is digging into a year-long theme of “Refuge Over Rejection.” We’re learning what it means for God to be our refuge, and what it means to be a refuge for others. This week I happen to be wrapping up a three-week series of messages about “refuge” from Psalms 1, 2, and 3. In the first week, I shared:

Refuge isn’t a place you run to – it’s a life you grow into.

It’s finding the refuge of God within me. When God is continually my source in the quiet – He grows into my refuge in crisis.

The message this Sunday is from Psalm 3 — written by David when his own son almost stole the kingdom from him in a coup and David found himself once again on the run.

So as I read today’s chapter this morning — my mind and heart have for weeks been focused on the theme of refuge. They have been focused specifically on David’s crisis much later in his life.

In today’s chapter. David is still a young man. He’s living on the run as a mercenary in enemy territory. He’s leading a motley crew of outcast and misfit warriors. And as they return home from being told they can’t fight in the war behind Achish — they find that their hometown of Ziklag has been raided by their old enemies the Amalekites. The city is in ruins – burned to the ground. Their families and all that they own have been stolen as plunder.

David’s own warriors — not the most emotionally stable lot — go emotionally ballistic. They rage that their wives and children have been taken captive. They do what we humans do in crisis — we look for someone to blame. And they blame David. The angry warriors pick up stones to kill him in retriubution for their losses.

And then the narrator gives us one sentence that is the heart of the chapter.

But David found strength in the Lord his God.

David, the shepherd boy who had spent years in the quiet fields finding God as his source and refuge against lions and bears. David, the young man who had spent time in the quiet since he was boy pouring out his heart and soul to God song lyrics and poems. David, in this moment of crisis, his men about to kill him, desperately needs a refuge — and he finds it within.

Refuge isn’t a place you run to – it’s a life you grow into.

Everything else in the story flows from this moment.

I couldn’t help but notice what David does not do. He doesn’t deny the loss. He doesn’t pretend everything is fine. He doesn’t suppress his grief.

He weeps. The men weep. Everyone is devastated. Faith is not the absence of sorrow. Faith is choosing where to turn with sorrow. It is the invitation to the “chain reaction of praise.”

Where do I go when everything burns down?

When my marriage is struggling.
When the diagnosis comes.
When my dream collapses.
When my business disappoints.
When the promises seem delayed.

Many people seek God so that circumstances will improve, but David sought God long before before the circumstances went south. So when the crisis erupted, God’s refuge was right there — within — in his heart and soul at the moment he needed it.

And, it’s the turning point. Once David strengthens himself in God, clarity returns. Direction returns. Action returns. Hope returns.

God remarkably restores everything that David and his men lost. Yet the deeper miracle may be that before God restored David’s circumstances, God restored David’s soul.

Sometimes the first victory God intends is not around me.

It’s within me.

FYI: I’m going to be out most of next week. Likely returning Fri June 26.

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