the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 2 of 5
1 Samuel 30:1-10
God did not allow David to take part in the battle against Saul whom he had twice spared so generously, nor against Jonathan his friend, nor against Israel, over whom he had been called to reign.
But although he was kept from this, he now has to undergo discipline, as must every disobedient servant. This discipline is the disaster which he finds when he returns to Ziklag. What a tragedy this is for his men, but particularly for their leader. Those most dear to him have disappeared. He does not know whether they are dead or only prisoners. David has lost everything. Worse than that – exiled from Israel, pursued by Saul, rejected by his false friends the Philistines, his true friends who have been faithful companions from the beginning, now turn against him and speak of stoning him. He has nothing left . . . but . . . nevertheless – God remains! And we read these remarkable words, "David encouraged himself in the LORD his God" (v. 6). No longer able to count on anything or anybody, he understands what the hymn means, "Thou alone remainest when all else is gone". Then with this strength which he again found in his God, David sets out resolutely to pursue the plundering Amalekites.
