2009 – Day 127.May 08 – “A Very Present Help”

2009 – Day 127.May 08 – “A Very Present Help”

Passage of the Day: 1st Samuel 30: 1 – 6 … Linked to 1st Samuel 30 for your study …

My Journal for Today: Down about as far as he could go; so, where does David turn? He’s tired and depressed; and he no doubt was worried about the loss of the women and children under his leadership, including two of his own wives who’d been captured by the Amalekites, a fearsome warrior tribe of the time. What was the king-to-be to do? No where to look, but up; and that’s exactly where David turned. Read 1st Samuel, verse 6; and we read that David was strengthened by His Lord.

Perhaps you’re in a place of despair and seeming hopelessness even as you read this. Maybe it’s the lousy economy which has you down and almost out. Perhaps it’s a diagnosis of cancer. Or maybe it’s a relational problem in your home. But you can empathize with David; … no where to turn but upwards … from the horizontal to the vertical. And that’s exactly where God had allowed David to plunge; and that’s exactly where David turned; … to God.

And if we read on in David’s immediate plight or on to times later, we learn that God lifted David up and delivered him into victory after victory, … even on to the kingship for which God had anointed David. But David had to be delivered from his immediate valley of the shadow of death (you know Psalm 23, a Psalm of David), seeing that God will never forsake, nor abandon, His chosen ones [Do you remember Deut. 31: 6?]. David had to experience the strength which can come only from God, written about by another Psalmist in Psalm 46: 1, “… a very present help in time of trouble.”

I could personalize this with testimony and more from God’s word; but I think you’ve probably been in some valley of despair, as was David in today’s passage; and I pray that you know Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you don’t, and you’re in that low place in your life, you’re there alone; aren’t you? But if you have God in your life, you’re with the One Who wants you to look up to Him, … to cry to Him, … to rely on Him. Because only God can take you through that valley of despair and give you that peace that surpasses all understanding (I hope you have Phil. 4: 6-7 internalized).

My Prayer for Today: Down and out? Look up, dear one, to the God Who is there to deliver you. Amen