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Writer's picture: #anabundantlifeseeker#anabundantlifeseeker

Updated: Aug 19, 2019

When you come back to emptiness, how do you refill? When all has been taken, how do you recover



Glad to be home? After a weekend sleeping on the couch or sharing a single bed. The answer will most likely always be yes.

When I've been away for more than a night, the procedure of my key turning in the front door leads to the thought of me climbing into my king sized bed, spreading out and being asleep before the first chapter of my audio bible is complete. That thought however, has occasionally been interrupted by the smell of something that has spoilt due to being left out or the glance of a 'huge' spider. All of a sudden, my priority has changed and I start regretting having ever moved out of mum's house.

So David and his men came to the city (their current home), and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive

Imagine coming home, after travelling 3 days to get back, and finding everything and everyone that is important to you gone and your home and surrounding area in ashes. The overwhelming feelings of hurt, anger and despair has no way of coming out other than through uncontrollable tears. Envision being so devastated by what you see that all you can do is lift up your voice and weep 'until you have no more power to weep' (1 Samuel 30:4).

David was a man of God. God had already told him that he would be the next king of Israel. However, his affiliation with God and his prosperous future didn't stop him or his family from being attacked.

Many of us know that being a Christian doesn't stop bad things happening to us. Similar things that threaten a non-Christian marriage may threaten yours; the same treatment that non-Christian employees may get you may have to experience; the same level of pain and loneliness a non-Christian may experience, you may one day feel.

David was familiar with troubles: especially early on in his Christian experience and loss: more towards the middle and end. Many of his early troubles came from those who were meant to be representing God. However on this occasion the Amalekities were the perpetrators and they didn’t just bring trouble to his life but to lives of his family and all his men and their families. (1 Samuel 30: 1-3)

Many centuries later, Jesus was rather upfront about certain realities of life. He pre-warned us - ‘In this world you will have trouble...’ (John 16:33). On this occasion Jesus didn’t go into details about where, when or how these troubles would manifest. Nonetheless he did admonish us to be courageous through these times. Having this encouragement and knowing that bad things are destined to happen to everyone, doesn’t always help us deal with the heart ache attached to our troubles; especially when our troubles include some sort of loss.

Loss is one of those things that seem to always catch us by surprise even though deep down we know that it is inevitable. Let me just be clear about what I mean when I refer to loss as it doesn’t always mean the death of someone. It could be the loss of a job or your home, a separation between friends or lovers, the loss of a particular characteristic e.g a leg or clear speech. So how do we get to a place of ‘good cheer’ during our times of trouble and loss? And how do we go about making sure that our troubles don’t distract us from God’s ultimate plan for our life. From David’s situation we learn that our strength is in how we think and process what happens to us. Below are 4 practical hints based on 1 Samuel 30. (Take some time to read the whole story for yourself as this just scratches the surface).


1. Life could always be worse, so identify what is currently making it better.

As unsympathetic as it might sound, it is the truth.

Yes - the Amalekites had invaded, attack and burned Ziklag (David’s city).

Yes - they had taken captive the women and everyone else, from ‘the greatest to the smallest’

Yes - everything was ruined but no one was killed.

We have to be intentional about finding something to be grateful for. Once we’ve found that thing, we can choose which parts of a situation to focus on. No matter how big or small, there is always some evidence of God’s Mercy! There is always light!

I was only a day into having moved into my house, which was at that time still a work in progress. I had come home to only find my central heating had automatically switched off due to the pressure dropping. This was a big problem. It was the middle of winter and no heating wasn’t an option. I was still quite new to this home owning thing so I didn’t have a clue what the low pressure flashing sign meant but I knew that I didn’t have the money to be able to call someone out to look at it so I .... YouTubed it and found a video with a boiler which looked kinda like mine. Feeling really chuffed with myself I began to follow the instruction the man was giving. All seemed to be going well, the pressure was raising so I continued with confidence to only find that I could hear the sound of water. The video had finished at this point and my work was meant to be done. As I walked into my passage water was gushing from my spot lights. I started to panic and started to regret having ever starting this new chapter of my life.

At this point I could have continued thinking negative thoughts about my situation, which although were true - were not going to help me think straight enough to come up with a practical solution. I manage to help myself feel better by acknowledging that I wasn’t the first person and I sure wasn’t going to be the last person to have house issues and if God was going to allow this to happen He must have had a plan to make sure I had the money to pay for whatever needed fixing. That night as I lay in my bed I thanked God for friends as they lived the closest so I was able to stay with them and be warm for the night.

2. Don’t focus on the ‘what ifs’

No where in this story do we see David beating himself up about his past decisions. Yes, this may have all been avoided if he had had more faith.

Yes this may have all be avoided if he hadn’t taking his life into his own hands and gone to live amongst the rival enemy’s of God (1 Samuel 27).

Yes this may have been avoided if he had left some of his men at base.

David’s situation was now his situation and how he dealt with what was before him now, was going to determine what his next chapter was going to look like.


3. Remember that Crying is good for your soul

Crying shows strength and according to research, relieves stress allowing us to think better. David didn't pretend that his feelings didn't exist or play down how he felt. His feeling were real and he allowed himself to feel them. He could have tried to contain it, he could have cried silently, he could have allowed it to turn into irrational and uncontrollable anger but instead he cried until he had nothing left inside of him. Sometimes we choose to block out our feelings of hurt but in the long run it leads to more damage.


4. Choose where you are going to go from here.

Your distress can lead you down one of two paths. Closer to God or further away from Him. David was without a doubt ‘greatly distressed.... but David encouraged himself in the Lord’. He was very much effected by what had happened to his city and the people he was responsible for. Regardless of this, he choose to direct his mind to and take hold of the LORD his God.

Usually at the time of our great distress we choose to take hold of everything other than the LORD our God; the opposite sex, food, alcohol, drugs, media etc. and these can lead to us to not being proactive in dealing with what’s happened and sometimes in the long run, can result in us having more problems to deal with at the end. For the people in 1 Samuel, it lead to them looking for someone to blaming which intern led them to want to kill David. For David, it led him to connect with God. Where will your great distress led you?


Step 4 is the most important as the path you choose to take goes on to either further cloud your judgement or lead to you thinking clear enough to take serious action.

Once David had chosen to encourage himself in the Lord, he enquired of Him as to whether he should go after what was rightfully his. God responded in the affirmative. David could have settled with the fact that he had lost everything but instead he aims for something more, even though it was going to require him to trust in God’s guidance, to leave his comfort zone, and fight with all his might.


In my short time as an abundant life seeker, I’ve had my share of troubles and loss. Like David I have been left devastated by the initial shock but through the direction and guidance of God I’ve managed to recover everything that I lost and gain elements of life that only experience could have given.


Having been crowned Kings and Queens of our own ‘kingdoms’ its only up to us to decide how the rest of the story goes. Do we choose life - the general acceptance of troubles which led us to numb our feels and develop deep moments of despair that we find hard to ever come out of; or abundant life - which leads to positive outcomes for not just us but those connected and effected by similar things?

You maybe one of two people, you’ve either recently experienced trouble and/or loss or you are one day going to. Try responding in accordance to 1 Samuel 30 and let me know how it goes.

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