Pastor Elwin Ahu
April 27, 2008 - W0817

God has a reason for what He allows to happen.  We will go through times of disappointment, discouragement, and defeat.  There will be times when things just don’t make sense to us.  We will all have those trying and confusing times but we must not lose heart.  We must remember that God is in control and He has a purpose for all that we go through.

It is inevitable that whenever I am preparing for a message, God will provide me with a story that I will be able to share as part of my [His] message.  Well I was working on the message Friday, keeping in mind that I needed to get it done because Jared had a baseball game on Saturday morning.  It was about 3pm when Joy called.  She was at Jared’s school to pick him up.  She had left her purse on the car seat and someone smashed in the car window and stole her purse.

I jumped in my car and drove over to the school.   It was pouring rain...there was an event at the school that evening…it was already 4pm and since Joy’s wallet (including cards and such) were stolen we needed to get to the bank to cancel all of our accounts before the bank closed at 5pm…and I still needed to prepare the message!  Through the events of the afternoon and evening, I had to keep reminding myself:  God is in control and He has a purpose for all that we go through.

We will go through times of trial.  What do we do?  Grumble and complain about what is happening?  Or do you try to see the unseen?

“Therefore we do not lose heart…For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an external glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18 NIV)

In the book of Samuel, we find David going into the camp of the Philistines, wanting to go to battle with them but he is turned away.  Instead, the Philistines sent him back home to Ziglag – David had 600 of his men.  When they got to Ziglag, what did they find?  That the Amalekites had ravaged their homeland; anything they did not they burnt to the ground.  As David surveyed his home, he was not David the Anointed. He was David the Discouraged.

Maybe you’re going through a time similar to David where you can’t see God’s plan in this all and don’t understand why things are the way they are.  Maybe you had a job one day but not the next day.  Maybe the doctor just told you that there’s nothing more that they can do for you.  When we’re faced with crisis, here are some of the common responses.

COMMON RESPONSES TO CRISIS:

·    Dependence

When David and his men found the ruins of Ziglag, they wept.  “Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep” (1 Sam. 30:4).  It is common it times of complete distress for people to “lose it” emotionally.

·    Anger and Blame

Another common response to crisis is to get angry, lash out and blame those around us.  “Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters” (1 Sam. 30:6a).  Though David was in the same boat as them, they were ready to stone him! 

Dependence, Anger, and Blame are common responses to crisis however they are not necessarily productive.  After all that he went through – despite the circumstances around him – David teaches us a better way to respond.

CORRECT RESPONSE TO CRISIS:

1.      TRUST THAT GOD SEES THE UNSEEN

God still was going to make him a king but God needed to strip David of all his dependencies:  what he owned and even his reputation.  God wanted David to be solely dependent on Him, and that’s what David did:   “But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:6b).

When David strengthened himself in the Lord, he didn’t do what people usually do.  He didn’t let his emotions get the better of him and follow his heart like people normally do.  Instead, he talked to his heart:  “Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God” (Ps. 42:11).  David shows us here that we need to talk to and encourage our heart, not follow it. 

When I had just stepped down from the bench and was feeling pretty discouraged, I was invited by a women’s group to speak at their luncheon and share my testimony. What I thought was going to be a small, quiet luncheon with just a few ladies turned out to be a room full of women (about 300), many of them approaching the platform where I was speaking, speaking in tongues and praying over me.  I was a relatively new Christian and this seemed a bit over the top however there was one particular woman who made her way through the crowd to where I was standing.  She told me that she had gone through some uncertain times previously and someone had given her a two dollar bill as a reminder that it’s just her and God, and that’s enough.  She was also told that one day she’d meet someone who was facing the same trouble and she handed me the two dollar bill.  She told me she wanted me to have it as a reminder that it’s just me and God – and that’s enough.  I keep that $2 bill on my office shelf as a daily reminder that God and I are enough.

You are going to face tough times.  In those times, are you willing to trust God?  When you trust that God sees the unseen, you can…

2.      STOP DOUBTING GOD.

David took a wrong turn in his life when he started to doubt God.  “Then David said to himself, ‘Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul.  There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines.  Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand’” (1 Sam. 27:1).
 

David was not denying God but he doubted God.  Doubt convinced him to cross over from where he was to the Philistines.  What an ironic twist since he was the little boy who once stood to face (and defeated) the Philistine giant Goliath. 

When we doubt God, we start to make desperate and short-sided decisions.  When David tried to join the Philistines, he was short-sighted and used poor judgment.  David wanted to join the Philistines because they provide him with security from Saul but that was only for the present, not his future.  On the other hand, God was thinking of David’s future and orchestrated things such that David did not throw away the plans God had for David because of David’s short-sightedness.

Whenever doubt causes you to take matters into your own hands, you’ll settle for second best.  Don’t settle for second best (Ziglag).  God had a kingdom for David but he settled for Ziglag.  Insisting on your own way with God is hazardous to your health (and future)…

·    SOMETIMES THE WORST VICTORY TO WIN IS WHEN YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY.

Sometimes God will allow what you ask to happen but then you’ll have to suffer the consequences.  And He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.” (Ps. 106:15 KJV)

So how then should we respond?

3.      RESPOND NOT BY WHAT YOU SEE, BUT BY WHAT GOD SAYS.

“And David inquired of the Lord, saying, ‘shall I pursue this band…’  And He said to him, ‘Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them, and you shall surely rescue all.’” (1 Sam. 30:8)  By consulting God’s word, he could see the unseen. 

Too many Christians are leading lives that are defeated and broken.  They live a life of worry rather than the life of joy God intended for them.  We tend to focus on what the enemy is doing rather what God has already done! 

“…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” (Eph. 3:16-17)

When you respond not by what you see but by what God says, you’ll receive strength from the inside out – the strength you find from the inner man.

We will all go through times of disappointment, discouragement, and defeat but it is in those times – those defining moments – that we will determine our future.  In times of crisis, we commonly respond with dependence, anger or blame but that is not what we should be doing.  Instead, we should trust that God sees the unseen and that He is in full control.   When we trust God, we can stop doubting Him and we can respond not by what you see, but by what God says. 

DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS

1.      How do you typically respond to a crisis?

2.      What do you think it means to “look for” or “see” the unseen? 

3.      What prevents you from (or challenges you when you try to) see the unseen?

4.      Tell about a time when getting your own way turned out to be a bad thing.  What did you learn from that?

5.      Share an example of when you responded not by what you saw but by what God said. What happened?