Waiting In Faith
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Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.
We are continuing today in our series in the book of 1 Samuel. We have in recent weeks seen God tell Saul he would lose the kingdom. We have seen David spiritually anointed by God and chosen to be the next king.
And we saw that after God took decided to take the kingdom from Saul and to anoint David, that everyone pretty much went back to what they were doing.
Samuel went home after anointing David.
Saul was still the acting king.
David went back out in the fields from where he was called to tend his father’s sheep - he was anointed by God and then went back to work.
And while next week we will be looking at one of the most famous events in all the Bible in chapter 17 - the story of David and Goliath - with an exciting battle and salvation by the hand of a sovereign God - we still have the end of chapter 16 to consider.
And here, life just goes on. Saul is waiting for God to take the kingdom from him.
David is waiting for God to make him king. Samuel is waiting to see how God will do all He has promised to do.
And if we don’t pay close attention, we can miss how God is working out every detail to accomplish His will for His people.
And the same is true for our lives. I know we want to do great things for God. We want God to work mightily through us as a church and as individuals. We pray for God to move supernaturally and give us opportunities to save souls and advance His kingdom.
We want to see Him do great things and we want to do those great things Christ said we would do.
But odds are, after we’re done here today, we are all just going to go home, and life is going to go on. We will go back to work tomorrow. And we will likely have to wait to see that God is doing great things.
The question is: will we wait in faith? Because we are called to act in faith - I call us to action from this pulpit every week - to by faith do what God calls us to do.
But what about all those times that what God calls us to do, is wait?
Like God is calling David to wait, beginning with our passage today.
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
So first we see that the Holy Spirit departed from Saul. We know he was already rejected as king by God, and now we see that God takes His Spirit from him. What does that mean?
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament did not operate the same way as in the New Testament. By that I mean that the indwelling of the Spirit was not what it is today in every case.
Now, the Spirit’s indwelling is Christ’s presence with the elect, and our seal and sign that we are in the New Covenant. The Spirit is quite literally God’s presence on earth in each believer and in the church as a whole.
In the Old Testament, God’s presence was physically in one place - in the Tabernacle, then in the Temple - and His people were called to come to Him to be in His presence. And they had all of the sacrifices they were to make to be able to get into His presence. To make them holy enough to be in His presence.
But none of those sacrifices, as we know from the book of Hebrews, were able to take away the sin of God’s people and save them. If you pay attention to the tedious ceremonial laws in the Old Testament, you’ll notice that in most cases, when someone sinned, there was nothing available to save them and to allow them back into God’s presence.
In fact, the punishment for most sins was death.
Coming to God and offering sacrifices could not provide salvation for sinners. Once they sinned, they could not be in God’s presence.
So, to provide salvation and allow sinners into His presence, God had to come to His people.
And He did. First in the incarnate Son of God. He came to atone for our sin and He died in our place so we could be forgiven. And then, after He completed His work, and ascended to heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit to indwell - to live within - all those He saves.
And there is a reason He is revealed as the Holy Spirit. He makes us holy and allows us into God’s presence. He is God’s presence with those whom He makes holy.
And once He is with you, He is with you forever.
That was not always the case in the Old Testament.
Now, God did give His Spirit as a permanent indwelling of His presence in the Old Testament. Like we saw with David last week:
1 Samuel 16:13 (ESV)
Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.
But often, the Spirit was given under the Old Covenant temporarily to empower people for special tasks, usually to lead God’s people.
Like when the Spirit would rush upon Samson to give him supernatural strength. Or like when we read back in 1 Samuel 10 after Saul was anointed by Samuel, the Spirit of God rushed upon him and he prophesied.
So the Spirit was given to Saul to empower him to lead God’s people.
Well, here, God removes His Spirit from Saul. Because Saul had been rejected as king.
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
God took His Spirit from Saul - the Spirit that He granted him in order to lead His people - and gave it to David to lead His people. So we see here again that spiritual anointing God gave David. The crown has not passed from Saul to David. But the Spirit of God has.
What we see here is a transfer of God’s favor from Saul to David. It is pointing out a turning point in the history of Israel, but even more, a spiritual turning point in the history of salvation.
In the Ancient Near East, when a dynasty would come to an end and a new one would take control of a monarchy, it was believed that the gods brought about the change. They reject one house, and call another into power.
And Israel held the same belief, only they believed it was YHWH that did the rejecting and the calling of the king. Here, He rejected Saul by taking the Holy Spirit from him, and called David by anointing him with that same Spirit.
This is why David, after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah - which we will eventually get to - prays for God not to take His Holy Spirit from him in Psalm 51. That is not a prayer for God to not reject David from salvation. It is a prayer by David to not take the kingdom from him!
Like God takes it from Saul. Saul made himself an enemy of God, as we saw. He turned his back on God. So God takes His Spirit from Saul.
And instead, God sends Him a harmful spirit. What is this “harmful” spirit?
Harmful = evil (bad, wicked)
And in Hebrew, the word “spirit” can be a mental or emotional description, not just a spiritual one. The Bible describes things like a spirit of jealousy or a spirit of justice or a spirit of wisdom. It refers to a person’s gifting or attributes or demeanor.
But it can also mean a spiritual being. As this is contrasted with the Holy Spirit here, that’s what it means here. God takes the Holy Spirit from Saul, and gives him a harmful spirit instead.
And we see this kind of thing elsewhere in the Old Testament, like when God wants to remove King Ahab from power, and Micaiah the prophet says:
And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”
So God uses other divine beings - what we would call angels in our day - to carry out His will. He uses these spiritual beings as agents of temporal salvation or temporal judgment.
And as we see, He does it multiple times to punish kings that fail to lead His people into Godliness.
And that is what is happening here:
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
And of course, this begs the question - is God doing “evil” here?
And of course, we have all been taught that God does not do “evil.” God is only ever good. I say it all the time. And I believe it.
But we need to understand what the Bible means when it says that God does not do evil.
Like here:
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
The same word is used here for “evil.”
Or when the Apostle John tells us:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
And of course, light is used as a metaphor in the Bible for truth and righteousness, and darkness is often used as a metaphor for deception or wickedness.
God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him.
Yet God also says:
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
And that “calamity” is the same word usually translated evil, and is translated “harmful” here:
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
So God has no darkness in Him, but He creates darkness. He is not evil, but He creates evil.
How do we reconcile all of this?
Well, we need to understand that the wickedness or the evil of creatures is not of God. When man sins or when a heavenly being sins, that is a willful choice to turn our back on God and follow our own ways.
That is what Satan and Adam and Eve did in the Garden. That’s what Saul did with the Amalekites. And God does not do or cause that kind of evil. He does not create sin.
But we cannot deny that God does things like allow His angels to deceive the wicked. We cannot deny that He sends spirits of harm or torment upon the wicked to punish them. The Bible is very clear on this.
And our own experience tells us that God often allows evil to befall the good. Bad things happen to good people. All the time.
And this is just another pointer to God’s sovereignty. What happens - in every case - is what God intends to happen. Nothing God intends to happen can not happen, and nothing that happens can happen without God intending it to happen.
Now, that doesn’t mean that God causes sin - our own hearts do that. It doesn’t take a supernatural act of God for a person to sin.
But God ordains that harm or calamity or “bad” will happen to people.
And the reason we sometimes have trouble reconciling all of this, is because there is a difference between our definition of “good” and “bad” and God’s definition of “good” and “bad.”
Because, in the here-and-now, God uses evil, or wickedness, or bad, or harm to achieve His good purposes. And there is no denying that not only because we have the entire Bible that bears witness to this fact, and not only because our own experience tells us so, but because we know what happened to Christ and what it really meant.
Think of what He endured in this world.
God uses “bad” in this world to achieve unparalleled “good” in the world to come. To achieve unparalleled good for His people.
This is why we have to see with spiritual eyes and keep our eyes on Jesus, because if we get stuck looking around at all the “bad” going on here - and man is that easy to do! - but if we get our eyes fixed on all the bad, we will just be absolutely overwhelmed.
There is no lack of bad in the world. Watch the news, or any network television show, or go on Facebook. It’s everywhere.
And if we keep our eyes on those things and allow ourselves to focus on the “bad,” we will start to think God doesn’t care. Or that God has forgotten about us. Or that God isn’t good.
But He is. God is good all the time.
And this is where faith comes in. Because we often can’t see what God is doing in this world. In a world of sin and death - in a world cursed by God because of sin - goodness is hard to see. That’s why we have to walk by faith, and not by sight.
Because - when we get to heaven, and we see Him as He is - even if we aren’t given all the reasons for why God works the way He does or allows the suffering and evil that He does, we will know that He is good.
But in this world, there will be evil, and wickedness, and suffering, and bad things will continue to happen - even to good people.
But God is in control of it all, and God will use every last bit of it for His glory, His kingdom, and our good.
And God here - with this harmful spirit - uses “bad” to achieve His purposes.
God uses “bad” - worldly, temporal bad - to achieve His purposes
And what purpose did God have in orchestrating this bad for Saul?
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.”
So this spirit torments Saul, as God ordained.
And Saul’s servants see what’s going on and tell Saul: “what you need is a court musician to play to soothe you when this happens.”
And while this may sound odd to us as the first course of action for someone in distress - I mean, if this was today, we’d tell Saul to get some anxiety meds or start doing yoga.
But in the Ancient Near East, music was believed to drive away demonic spirits. Music was an important part of exorcisms in the ancient world. Now, in Saul’s case, this isn’t a demon. This is a righteous spiritual being doing God's bidding.
But Saul doesn’t know that. And his servants don’t know that. So Saul tells his servants to go find someone who can play well to try and get rid of this harmful spirit.
And one of his servants says: “I have a guy! He is one of Jesse’s sons in Bethlehem, and YHWH is with Him.” And this, of course, is David.
And these descriptions of David: “man of valor, man of war, prudent in speech, man of good presence” - these are once again hero descriptions in the ancient world.
And as I pointed out, the writer of this book is writing far after David’s death. He is looking back on David as the king after his life, and describing him in these ways and reflecting back on how God accomplished this all in him. And he is putting these words in the mouth of the servant, which is not uncommon in ancient writings or in the Bible.
Because we know that David at this point is not yet a man of war, as we will see in the next chapter.
The point is, the writer is pointing out that David - yes, king David - is the one who is suggested to Saul to help him.
And Saul hears of David, and tells Jesse, “send me your son.”
Now, do we see the irony in all of this?
God just took His Spirit from Saul and gave His Spirit to David. That is why we are told here of David that YHWH is with him. Saul is tormented because the Spirit of God is gone and this harmful spirit was given to him.
So the one with God’s Spirit is now needed to help Saul with this spirit of evil.
And God worked it out that way.
And as we will see, God is beginning a string of events and circumstances - some of them very bad from a wordly standpoint, especially for David - in order to bring about His plan for His people.
God is going to use all of what happens in the rest of this book - and the rest of history - for the good of His people. For their salvation.
All that we read in this book so far, God has orchestrated to get to this point. The rejection of Eli and his sons and the establishment of Samuel. The choosing of Saul as the king of the people to teach them a lesson, and his subsequent rejection and choosing of David
And now, Saul is actually bringing David - who he doesn’t know is the next king - into the royal court.
Do you see how every detail is used by God to achieve His good purposes?
And this is also ironic because Samuel warned the people that if they choose a king, he would take their sons and daughters as his servants. And here’s Saul. Here he is demanding from Jesse his son, to be his servant. And it is written in the Hebrew as a command. So Saul is taking Jesse’s son to serve him. And that’s bad. That’s why Samuel warned Israel of this.
But it’s good. Because God is making the way for David to ascend to the throne. Nobody knew it at this point. Nobody saw that this was happening or that this was God’s plan. And things were going to get way worse before they got better.
But in time, we will see that God is working this for the good of His people. How?
Because Samuel also warned the people that if the king who reigns over them follows YHWH, all would be well with them. But if he didn’t - if the king didn’t follow YHWH - then His hand would be against them and their king.
And this is what’s happening. Saul and the people disobeyed God in the sparing of the Amalekite king and goods, as we saw a few weeks ago, and God’s hand is now against Saul. We see this with the taking of the Holy Spirit and the sending of the harmful spirit.
But we see God’s goodness in the fact that He used all of that “bad” - even the wickedness of sinful men - to bring about His will, and now Saul is absolutely insisting that David come to the throne room.
And if this had not happened, then David would not have gotten the opportunity to serve Saul in the army, and things would not have played out the way they did.
And while David has to wait another about 14 years to inherit the kingdom, and while it is going to be a very “bad” 14 years for him - God uses it all to give David the kingdom and bless His people.
God is giving them the king that will obey so He can bless them. And He is using every circumstance - whether “good” or “bad” from an earthly point of view - and He is using it all for the good of His people!
And this is where David again points us to Christ. I mean, imagine Jesus’s disciples - those that did believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He was the fulfillment of a promise that was first made thousands of years before He came.
And then after the captivity in Babylon, and the Greek oppression, and the Seleucid oppression, and the Roman oppression, Messianic hopes were high when Christ came.
And then there He was. Healing the sick. Giving sight to the blind. Raising the dead! Speaking the Words of life. Training His disciples to follow in His footsteps and bring salvation to the world.
And then He gets arrested. And then He’s sentenced to die like a common criminal.
And He is put on the cross. And He dies.
I mean, from the disciples’ point of view, I can’t think of something else that can even approach that level of disappointment.
But what they couldn’t see as it was all happening, was how God was using all this “bad” - including the wickedness of men. They couldn’t see how God was using it all for His purpose.
And His purpose was the good of His people. The complete opposite of the worldly situation. What man saw as bad, God used as good. God ordained the most terrible thing that has ever happened to work out to be the greatest thing that has ever happened.
God uses “bad” - worldly, temporal bad - to achieve His purposes
His purpose is the good of His people
Here, God spiritually anoints David, chooses him to be king, takes His Spirit from Saul, and it all works out so David winds up in Saul’s service in the very home of the king.
But there’s more:
And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul. And David came to Saul and entered his service. And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.” And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.
Jesse, of course, obeys the command of the king and sends David along with gifts for the king. And David finds favor in Saul’s sight to the point that David becomes his armor bearer.
And we need to realize that this is not instant. There is some time compression in this description. The Old Testament narratives often compress time in some of its descriptions.
David becomes Saul’s armor bearer, but that likely doesn’t happen until the beginning of chapter 18. This is jumping ahead in time to tell us how this turns out for David.
But what this is telling us, is that God worked all things out to further His purposes. David not only becomes the court musician, but God gives him favor with Saul and he becomes his armor bearer, and eventually a leader in the army, and eventually a very successful leader of the army, which gives him great popularity with the people - and this is all before everyone knows he has been chosen by God to be king.
And notice - whenever the harmful spirit would come upon Saul, David would play his lyre, and the spirit would depart. Now, Who was this spirit from? God. So Who took the spirit away when David played? God. So Who gave David favor in the sight of Saul? God.
Why? So Saul would eventually make him armor bearer which would afford David the chance to find favor with the people.
God did all of this. He worked all of this out, and nobody saw how for 14 more years.
God is setting the stage for His ultimate purpose to be fulfilled. He is working out details of what needs to happen in order for David to be the king He needs him to be 14 years from this moment.
Think about that. God is planning David’s coronation years ahead of time not just by giving him the anointing of the Spirit, but by sending the harmful spirit to Saul, to set up the need for a musician to come, and one of Saul’s servants happens to know of David, and when David comes, God removes the harmful spirit from Saul.
But think about the fact that David was already skillful in playing. He had to have been playing the lyre for years at this point. So God was really setting this up even before this moment. He gifted David in music to even get to this point with Saul, so that he could eventually ascend to the throne.
Think about that before you say no to your child getting a drum set.
Now, am I saying that every little thing we do is used by God in order to fulfill His purposes, from whether or not we take piano lessons to whether or not we become royalty?
Yes. That’s the point.
But very rarely can we see how or why God is using everything together for His purposes until it’s all hindsight. Even then we have trouble understanding it all, sometimes.
But while we’re in it, and God’s perfect plan is being worked out, we tend to see all the “bad” that’s happening. We tend to forget that God’s purpose is always the good of His people, according to His definition of good.
We are just not good at waiting. Man is very much an instant gratification species. And we are getting even worse, in my opinion.
And I include myself in this, believe me. This is why when my wife and I go out for a bite to eat and there’s a 40 minute wait at the restaurant, I prefer to spend the next hour finding a restaurant where there’s only a five minute wait.
So when we have to wait through “bad” years like David before God’s purpose is realized, we tend to get discouraged. And our faith waivers. And we doubt God.
We forget that God uses all things to achieve His good purposes, but that God doesn’t work in our timing. God is not slow as some count slowness, but is patient toward us - those whose good He is working out.
So, while we can look around at any given point in time, and we can see all that is going wrong and all that is so bad from our perspective, and we can wonder what God doing - well, we can know what God is doing. He is working out the details of the good He has in store for us.
And while He works it all out, we need to remember the difference between our idea of “good” and “bad,” and God’s idea of “good” and “bad.” Otherwise, we will lose patience. We may lose hope. We will struggle with faith. And we will forget that God is good.
God uses “bad” - worldly, temporal bad - to achieve His purposes
His purpose is the good of His people
God doesn’t work good according to our timing
And this is something the Bible makes very clear.
If you read the blog post from this week about how long David waited to become king, you saw that the history of redemption is a history of waiting. But it isn’t just waiting, it’s waiting while enduring trials. It is waiting with faith through the “bad.”
And the Bible is replete with examples - Abraham and Sarah, Noah, Israel in Egypt, Israel in the wilderness, Israel in captivity, Israel waiting for the Messiah.
Think about the story of Joseph. Think about the “bad” he endured before he saw how God planned it all for good. Betrayed by his own brothers - nine of whom wanted to kill him outright. Wrongfully imprisoned. Forgotten in prison.
All bad!
And God through all of it, saved His people.
We will see David’s wait in detail in the rest of this book. He will have an entire army looking for him to kill him. He will have to literally live in a cave. He will lose his best friend. Things will be bad from an earthly standpoint.
But God uses it for good.
And, of course, we have the King that God promises to David. The One Who will rule forever, Jesus Christ. He will obey God perfectly. He will speak only the truth. And He will be killed for it.
But that horrible bad, became the only good we’d ever need.
And so we should remember Joseph, who through faith was able to forgive those who wronged him and see God’s good instead of man’s bad.
We should remember David, who refused to take matters into his own hand and waited patiently on God to work it all out. And it wasn’t easy. David felt hopeless at times. He felt like he couldn’t wait anymore for God to act.
But his faith did not waiver:
Read some of his Psalms from that point in his life.
Let’s read Psalm 13:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
David waited in faith.
And we should look to Christ, Who surrendered Himself and His well-being and His life - Who suffered unimaginable “bad” as He hung on the cross with our sin on His shoulders.
Who just as easily could have authored Psalm 13 while He endured the apparent victory of His enemies as He waited for God to work salvation through it.
And yet, as the task was before Him, and He was enduring the bad and ready for it to get worse, He dropped to His knees and said to God “Not my will be done, but yours.”
And we see in all these examples - and I could give many more - what we see with David here:
And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.
David waited on God, and had faith in whatever circumstances God placed him in.
He was God’s chosen king. He was anointed by God. And he was willing to sit and play his lyre for Saul whenever he needed him.
So:
God uses “bad” - worldly, temporal bad - to achieve His purposes
His purpose is the good of His people
God doesn’t work good according to our timing
God calls us to have faith while we wait
My testimony - read this past week’s blog for more details. When I came here, I had given up and accepted that God had other plans for me. But He didn’t.
God worked it all out in His time. Every detail that led me to my part-time pastor role, to coming here to MCC, to having the privilege of being your pastor - every detail over that 16 years was worked out by God, and I can only see it now.
And I know that God bringing me here is just a small detail in his great plan for this church.
And I know God is working out every detail in each of our lives to make us what we need to be - for His glory, for His kingdom - and for our good.
And it might not be this year. It might not be next year. It might be 16 or more years. But God has a plan, and it is good, and we need to wait with faith.
And that means - like we see with David today - we need to faithfully be where God has us right now, doing what God calls us to do right now, so that He will work everything out and do the amazing things He is planning to do through us.
We just need to be faithful to Him. We need to be faithful to each other. We need to be faithful to the truth. Because that’s waiting in faith.
You see: we can be like Saul, and get our eyes off of God and on the world around us, and we can be distracted by what we call “good.” We can try to gain for ourselves the best of what the world has to offer like Saul did with Amalekites, and we can stop being used of God.
Or, we can get distracted by what we call “bad.” The circumstances around us - the suffering, the evil, the wickedness - and we can wonder what God is doing and doubt His goodness. Or we can take matters into our own hands and try to do things our way.
Or, we can wait in faith. We can like Joseph choose to believe that God is working out something great no matter how much earthly “bad” we suffer. And God will do great things with that faith.
We can like David believe God is in control and refuse to take matters into our own hands. And God will do great things with that faith.
We can, like Christ, even though we know it will mean suffering, and pain, and rejection - we can decide to obey God where He has us, and along with Jesus earnestly pray to our Father, “not my will, but Your will be done.”
And God will do great things with that faith.
Brothers and sisters, I encourage you, no matter what you are going through right now, remember, God uses all things for His good purpose in His time, and all He needs to do it through you, is faith.