be refreshed...

We too know such voices in life that curse and shower us with dirt along the way. Perhaps it’s a difficult trial that can’t be avoided, or perhaps an inner voice that curses us throughout our day. Or it might be a person who always seems critical towards us. There are irritants that seem to accompany us our whole life and we wish we could somehow shut them up. The thought that these voices might actually be messengers from God is not necessarily the first interpretation that comes to mind.

But David, in one of his nobler moments, believes this to be the case. He is a man, humbled by circumstances, who is prepared to believe that God’s blessing might mysteriously be present in the painful situation that now afflicts him. He even hopes that the Lord might have pity on him, and repay him with good for the suffering he endures today.

The chapter ends with an understandable statement, “The king and all the people with him arrived at their destination exhausted.” We know how such trials of the spirit can harangue us to the point of exhaustion. But the verse continues, “and there he refreshed himself.”

If there is a lesson for us in David’s example it is this—that we not be too quick to presume the origin or purpose of the negative spirits in our life. If they are there because God has permitted them, who can say “Why do you do this?” As we bear, in faith, with things that can’t be changed in our lives, perhaps our hope might be like David’s—that the Lord will see our distress and repay us with good for the things we suffer today.

courtesy

mon papa