1 Samuel 23:26-28 “ Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. David was hurrying to get away from Saul, while Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them. 27 Then a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come; for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.” So Saul stopped pursuing David, and went against the Philistines; therefore that place was called the Rock of Escape.” This episode talks about how sometimes God saves us from ever having to go through the difficult situation and yet we never know about these times. We can still be grateful for them though. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
So Close
1 Samuel 23:26-28 “ Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. David was hurrying to get away from Saul, while Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them. 27 Then a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come; for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.” So Saul stopped pursuing David, and went against the Philistines; therefore that place was called the Rock of Escape.”
Father Mike talked about this verse the other day on Day 114 of the Bible in a Year Podcast and I thought it was such a great message that I wanted to pass it along to all of you that may or may not be listening to that podcast. If you are not listening, can I just take a second to say you really should be. It is such a great podcast. I like it so much because I am not only getting the Word of God every day, but I am also getting an explanation of it from someone who knows far more than I do. It gives me such a better understanding not of just the verses he talks about that day, but of the whole Bible in general. Also, every time we enter into a new time period Father Mike invites Jeff Cavins onto the show, who has also studied the Bible extensively and has written number Bible studies. Jeff introduces us to each new time period and he tells us what is significant about that time period and what to look out for while we are listening. It’s so informative.
Ok, back to today’s verse. In the verse today David is running from Saul. It turns out that the two armies aren’t actually that far apart. David is on one side of the mountain and Saul is on the other. Saul has actually been chasing David for awhile at this point but God has not delivered David into Saul’s hands. Saul and his army were gaining on David when a messenger came to Saul saying that he had to go defend his land from the Philistines who were raiding it. David was safe once again. I wonder if David knew just how close he was to being caught? This is something that we can’t usually keep track of. We can keep track of all the times God got us out of the middle of a bad situation. We can thank Him for healing us when we were sick. We can thank Him for helping us to find a job after being without one for so long. We can thank God for all the ways that He helped us when we really needed it.
However, what about all the times He saved us from the trouble before we got into it? How do we thank Him for that, when we didn’t even know about? I wonder how many times God has saved each one of us from things that we didn’t know about. I wonder how many times He prevented something bad from happening, or prevented us from getting sick. God is working all the time and in every detail of your life. There will be times, probably many times, when God will give you the strength to make it through a really difficult time. There will be times when He thinks it is necessary for you to go through the hard time so that you can grow stronger and deepen your faith. There will be times when you will need to go through the difficult situations to grow in perseverance and resilience. There will also be times when God saves you from ever having to go through the difficult situation. These are the times that we don’t know about. This could have happened three times in your life and this could have happened a thousand times in your life.
We have no idea how many close calls we have had. I read a story once, I can’t remember what book it was in, and it was about someone who got a strange feeling in the middle of the night that he needed to drive over to a friends house and pray for his wife. His friend was out of town and he had no idea why he had this feeling. He drove over to his friends house and prayed for an hour or two in his car in front of his friends house. Neither one of them know what he was praying against. There wasn’t anything bad that happened that night and so they are thankful for that. Would something have happened if he hadn’t been there praying? Only God knows the answer to that question. Maybe one day in heaven we will see our lives played out and we will be able to see all the things God protected us from. Until then we will just go on, obliviously unaware of how close we sometimes come to danger.
Even though we don’t know all the ways that God protects us from things, it doesn’t mean we can’t thank Him. We can thank God for all the ways He protects us on a regular basis. We don’t have to know exactly what He is doing to know that He is doing something. We know we are safe and we are provided for and that is worth a lot of gratitude. God doesn’t need our thanks, and yet He sure does appreciate it when we acknowledge all He does for us. I know that God appreciates when we show our gratitude because it gives us an example of it in the Bible. In Luke 17 Jesus stops along the way to heal 10 lepers. Afterwards only one of the lepers comes back to say thank you. In Luke 17:17-19, “Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Don’t be like these lepers. Be grateful for all that God is doing in your life. Thank God for all that He is doing, all the things you can see and all that you can’t see. You have no idea how close you might have been to being captured just as David was.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are so grateful for all the ways you protect us and provide for us. Lord, we have no idea how many times we were on the edge of something scary and you pulled us away from that edge. We thank you Lord. Lord, help us to be more grateful. Help us to express our gratitude more. Help us to be the one out of the ten that comes back and says Thank you! We love you Lord, you are truly amazing. You do so much for us and we are so grateful. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!