WalkDeep Conversations - Finding Strength

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Finding Strength

Have you ever had a bad day? Either the kind where something devastating happens - a loss, a huge failure, something that shakes the foundation of who you are - or the kind where you just can’t seem to make life work - hassles, frustrations, smaller things that seem to pile up creating a huge weight pressing in on you.

Of course, we’ve all had those days. Worn out, wiped out...just plain tired. You’re not alone.

King David had his share of bad days. Here’s a brief episode...

David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way. When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. David’s two wives had been captured—Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God. (1 Samuel 30.1-6)

I love that last line, which is worth re-reading: “David found strength in the LORD his God.”

He could have looked at his circumstances. He could have looked at the scoreboard of his failures and successes. He could have cowered in shame and guilt. He could have allowed his bleak-looking future to overwhelm him completely. Instead, he turned to God and found strength.

For Reflection...

Read this passage over a couple times. What must life have been like for David?
Where do you turn on a bad day? Where do you look for comfort and strength?
God seems to care more about who we are becoming than he cares about our successes - who are you becoming?
What would it look like for you to find greater strength in God?
Is there a prayer you’d like to write out?

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12.9-10

May we find strength in Christ, more now than ever before.

Here’s a book to help you on your walk...

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

Dallas Willard

“How do we hear God’s voice? How can we be sure that what we think we hear is not our own subconscious? What role does the Bible play? What if what God says to us is not clear?”