After the Tears

Introduction

Have you ever made decisions out of fear, only to have those decisions snowball into greater, more complex issues? Where we let fear and our perception cloud what God has already promised? Where we are so close to our breakthrough, but we allow the adversary to scare us into old habits and patterns? How did you recover from that? Most likely it took GOD’s intervention and course-correction. Today we are going to look at such a case and examine how we can make better choices in sticking with GOD’s plans for us.

Background

Verse one finds David and his band of mercenaries returning to the town of Ziklag to find it burned down and their wives and children kidnapped by the Amalekites. If you haven’t read through this book, your first question may be, “Why was David going to Ziklag?” followed by, “Why was Ziklag burned and the wives and children kidnapped?”

The answer to the first question is that David had grown fearful of King Saul and his mood swings. On several occasions, Saul tried to kill David – who was brought to the palace to play the harp for Saul. Also of note, David had been anointed the next King of Israel and already had a reputation of greatness after defeating Goliath. How great was David’s name? There were songs written about Saul killing his thousands and David killing his ten-thousands! Imagine how the lame duck king was feeling at this stage in his life. The kingdom has been removed from his family, God has removed His hand from him, and your replacement is literally playing in your face.

After David fled the presence of Saul, he sought refuge among the Philistines – sworn enemies of the Israelites and the people from which Goliath came. David struck a deal with the Philistine king that included David and his men serving in the Philistine army in exchange for protection from Saul. The king gave David and his men Ziklag as part of the agreement.

For money, David raided villages along the border of the Philistine and Israelite territories. When Philistia was ready to fight Israel again, David and his men traveled to Aphek, which is a three-day march from Ziklag. Once in Aphek, the commanders of the Philistine army recognized David and pleaded with King Achish to not let David fight along side them for fear that David would turn on them and kill them all. They knew the ferocious warrior David was and the songs penned about him. King Achish reluctantly sent David and his men back to Ziklag.

The problem with David being sent away wasn’t the fact that he was sent away, but there was no money made. With no money made, he couldn’t pay his mercenaries. So, now they’ve been marching a whole week and haven’t been paid. What would you do if you’d done all you’re supposed to do at work and didn’t get paid? It was about to go from a bad day to a worst day.

Observations

David’s lack of positioning caused problems for many people