How did David cope?
Elly is just a fifteen year-old farm kid, growing up somewhere in rural Australia.
She crutches sheep and throws hay bales with her dad, and watches her mum win prizes for her cakes at the local Show. She attends the local high school and life is pretty ordinary.
Until Show Week
‘Let’s not go to the Show, let’s ask if we can go camping instead!’ On their camping trip, they discover a valley that no-one ever knew there was a way into. After a few happy days here, the kids return home. The dogs are dead. The cattle are starving. Australia has been invaded, everyone in the district has been rounded up and imprisoned at the Showground, and suddenly these kids have to grow up.
There’s a war on and they need to become soldiers.
The issues they face and their responses to a new set of terrifying circumstances are the major themes of Tomorrow When the War Began (and the rest of the series), very popular with Australian teenagers of the past decade. However, many of these themes are also addressed in one of David’s psalms; Psalm 62.
David, we remember, has also had to learn to fight many battles in the horrific circumstances of his life between the time of his anointing by Samuel and even well into his reign as King.
How did David cope?
Like Elly and her friends in their hidden valley, David has a safe place to return to, in order to re-group, to refresh himself and re-focus. David’s safe place is ‘God alone’ (v.1) where he waits silently and passionately for God’s word, God’s comfort and God’s direction. In a world full of unjust and devastating conditions, David has learnt to ‘encourage himself in the Lord his God.’ (1 Samuel 30:6)
Like Elly and her friends, like David, we were never meant to be soldiers. We were made for fellowship with God – to walk with Him in the cool of the evening.
But, ever since the Fall, we’re in a war zone. Although Jesus has won the victory, the battles are constant and the bullets fly.
Injustices and devastating situations are part of our daily walk, and God alone is our place of retreat.
Jill Martin is Assistant Minister at BayWest. This is an extract of a recent sermon she gave at the morning service.