The devotion today is an excerpt from the book The Making of a Man of God: Lessons from the Life of David by Alan Redpath (link to the book listed below in the weekly resources. We hope this encourages your faith.
“David is now looking at God through the threatening clouds of opposition and trouble, instead of looking down at circumstances through the rainbow of God’s love. It is very easy to lose 20-20 spiritual vision. It is easy to develop a spiritual squint, to see things in the wrong perspective, and to start to panic. But how does it all begin? How do you think it began in David’s life?
I would apply New Testament truth to this Old Testament picture. It is not enough to receive the anointing of the Spirit of God once; He must abide. “The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you…abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have [not fear] confidence” (1 John 2:27–28). When the Lord Jesus was baptized the Spirit descended and remained on Him, we read in John 1:33.
What was the cause of this man’s panic when he was in the will of God, but surrounded by bewildering circumstances? Could it have been the same as ours is so often in similar surroundings, that we have relied too much on past experience? Have you neglected the daily renewal of God’s grace and power in your life? When God thrusts us out into some uncertainty and problem to test our faith, do you think that is why faith is overcome by fear and begins to shrivel up? Do you ask Him daily with hunger of heart and soul for a new anointing of the Spirit for the needs of the day? Does the Lord look down and see you deeply in love with your heavenly Father, deeply concerned that day by day you might do His will, or are you relying upon the experience of bygone days?
Has God heard from you the cry of a hungry soul that recognizes its need for daily grace? Or are you teaching, preaching, witnessing, serving, and banking upon the experience of twenty years ago when you met God for the first time? Oh, what emptiness of heart there is today in so many Christians! No wonder fear comes in through the door and faith goes out through the window!.
Reliance upon past blessings is not enough. Coming to the house of God for comfort, without being willing to face up to doubts and fears and unbelief and admitting them to be sin, is not enough. If God has put you into some dark places and into some trials, it is not to drive you into sin, but to deliver you by your daily, repeated surrender and commitment to His will as you abide in Him. He wants to be your living Savior today, not merely the God who met you years and years ago.
When you are living by faith through the darkness of circumstances, other people become aware of the radiance and sweetness of your life, and they are truly blessed.
David changed his behavior, but in spite of it his heart was fixed upon God. In the awful anguish of those hours that took him from Gibeah to Nob, from Nob to Gath, from Gath to feigned insanity, when he thought that the torch of his life was going out and the purpose of God was frustrated forever, he just stretched out a feeble hand and caught hold of the hand of his God. Here, in effect, is his testimony, pleading to us out of the darkness of his own experience, “I beg of you, from what I have proved, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8).
Isn’t the patience and mercy of God toward His people beyond our understanding? If you have allowed fears and doubts to overcome your faith because you have relied on past experience, then just lift up the hands of faith to God. With a hungry heart look up to Him, for if you cry to the Lord now, He will save you out of all your fears.