When life does not go as planned

This morning's scripture reading is going to come from 1st Samuel chapter 23. 1st Samuel chapter 23.

We've been continuing to work our way through the book of 1st Samuel, which is really in the Old Testament a fantastic, fantastic book. Hebrew narratives oftentimes don't draw out all of the creative writing and the color, but within them, if we really sit and ponder them, we see so many emotions and life experiences bound up in this text that really relate to all of us. It's not the perfect life and things don't go every the right way, and yet we see in here how we are called to live and so much that we learn from this.

So I'll be reading, as I often do, from a long portion of the text, actually from chapter 23. Hear this today.

Now they told David, "Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors." Therefore David inquired of the Lord, "Shall I go and attack these Philistines?"

And the Lord said to David, "Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah."

But David's men said to him, "Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?"

Then David inquired of the Lord again. And the Lord answered him, "Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand."

And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand.

Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, "God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars." And Saul summoned all the people of war to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.

David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, "Bring the ephod here."

Then David said, "O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant."

The Lord said, "He will come down."

Then David said, "Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?"

And the Lord said, "They will surrender you."

Then David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition.

And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hands. David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh.

And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, "Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I will be next to you. Saul my father also knows this." And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. David remained at Horesh, and Jonathan went home.

Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, "Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh on the hill of Hachilah, which is south of Jeshimon? Now come down, O king, according to all your heart's desire to come down, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand."

And Saul said, "May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have had compassion on me. Go, make more sure. Know and see the place where his foot is, and who has seen him there, for it is told me that he is very cunning. See therefore and take note of all the lurking places where he hides, and come back to me with sure information. Then I will go with you to him. And if he is in the land, I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah."

And they arose and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon. And Saul and his men went to seek him. And David was told, and he went down to the rock and lived in the wilderness of Maon.

And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon. Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. And David was hurrying to get away from Saul. And Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them.

A messenger came to Saul, saying, "Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid against the land." So Saul returned from pursuing after David and went against the Philistines. Therefore that place was called the Rock of Escape. And David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of En-gedi.

This is God's word. Let's pray.

Lord, I just pray now that you would speak to us from your word through your Spirit. Lord, enlighten our eyes and our ears to hear and to see what you have for us today. Father, help me to have clarity in voice and in speech to hear your Spirit as well. Lord, I pray that I would decrease and that you might increase. So even now, Lord, come and speak to us in Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction

As we've been looking at in this text and throughout Samuel, we've seen even last week, things aren't really going the way that maybe everybody planned, especially the way that David or Saul had planned in this case. Life is not happening the way that they expected for it to happen.

We find that David finds himself in the last chapter sitting in a cave alone by himself, nobody with him, feeling all of these emotions and questions and things that come. But God has been gracious to David, and he begins to bring people around David, showing that David is not alone and God is working for him throughout this.

We looked last week at that, and we saw how to calibrate our life in such a way that when we are walking through seasons like that, we learn how to invite the Lord into those things, and how it will strengthen and orient our life so that we weather those things when life doesn't go the way that we always planned for it to go.

I think this is a common theme for most of us. At every stage of life, you probably thought that you would go here and you would do this thing, and life would look like this, and then it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes that's okay, that's a normal part. You take that job and you thought it was going to be this awesome thing, and then you got into it and it wasn't that. Maybe you thought, "I'm going to go out and have kids, and the perfect house, and the perfect dog, and the perfect marriage, and everything's going to be grand and perfect. We're going to take these awesome vacations and I'm going to make all this money, and all these things are going to go so great," and then you just kind of get into the trenches of life and things happen.

Maybe you planned for retirement a certain way, and you thought, "My life after work and all this is going to look this way, and I'm going to plan my life in that direction for these things," and then a health thing comes along just as you retire, and you have to pivot and you're trying to figure out what to do. That is a normal part of life.

Every now and then, there are things where the devastation is so large that it just leaves us in disarray. It upends and reorients our life and leaves so much turmoil that we're left wondering how to make good of the situation, how to put the pieces back together, because we had plan A, and right now we're on plan Z. None of them worked, and every time we tried to fix and make things work, it still didn't work out.

We find that even in the last chapter, David pivoted early on: he runs over to the Philistines, he runs over to the cave, he runs over to Moab. He's just constantly on the run trying to figure out how to make good of his life and put the pieces together, because he was a national hero, and now he's the enemy of the state. What does he do with that? He's done good; he didn't deserve any of this, and yet this is what he is left with.

Saul probably planned to be king, to have a great kingdom, to be a military hero, and for everything to go good. Now he's worried about David, he's got all this turmoil going in life, he's disgruntled and discouraged and not happy, and his daughter as well as his son really are more for David than they are for him. So many things are not working the way that Saul wants them to work in his life.

Nobody's really that happy; nobody's really living out plan A or plan B or any of that in life. So what do you do in instances like that? What is David going to do?

Early on in this chapter, we find David beginning to hear that there's fighting happening in a city in Judah. David was from the tribe of Judah, and this is a city in Judah. David is way down in southern Judah right now, and he hears, 50 miles to the north, about this thing that's going on, and he feels like he should do something about it.

Why would David do that? David ultimately hears that they have attacked the city of Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors, which means they're taking all their crops. The people have worked hard; this is harvest time, and then the Philistines come in and just take the goods, which means people could starve. It's going to create a lot of hardship in the land. This is oftentimes what happened when people would raid other villages in ancient times. David, being a saving guy, thinks, "I need to go do something about this," because that's just kind of who David is in many ways.

Why take such a risk? When he gets up there, that's going to put him about 20 miles from where Saul is located. He's going to be in Saul's area; this is going to be a dangerous move. It's so much of a dangerous move that even after he inquires of the Lord, and the Lord says, "Yeah, go, if you do, you'll save the city," his men are like, "Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Why? What are you doing? We're going to be in dangerous territory!"

One of the great things about David that's a little bit different than Saul in this is that David doesn't give up. He doesn't just listen to the voice of the men that are following him. David goes back to God. Again, this is something that Saul didn't do. Remember at different times, the men would say to Saul, "Hey, we've got another plan, we're going to do this." David doesn't do that. David hears the objection—it seems reasonable—so he goes back to the Lord once again, and he inquires again.

This time in the imperative in the Hebrew, this is almost like a command: "Yes, go, go, David!" Right now the writer is signaling to us that now the Lord is really telling David, "Yes, this is what I want you to do, I want you to go there."

Why did David even inquire about this in the first place? Why is David risking his life and his men's lives? Because remember, God didn't send the command first. David decided, "Let me ask about this."

One, because David's a saving guy, but two, I think this—and I think we see this as this text unpacks a little bit more—I think David thinks that if he saves these people, because these are like his kinsmen, it might gain him favor with the people of Keilah. They also might provide for them and protect them. Even within ancient Israel, which was composed of 12 tribes, tribes kind of stay tight and watch out for one another in many ways. We see this even in the book of Judges with the tribe of Benjamin protecting one of their cities even when that city was committing atrocious acts.

David here has a little bit of a hope and maybe a little bit of a plan going on in his life: "Hey, if I win favor, maybe they'll protect me, and maybe the rest of Judah will surround me and work for me. This could be a good plan."

So much so that when he hears later that Saul is coming for him, he doesn't immediately run off; he thinks, "If I stay here..." He asks, "Will they hand me over?" Even with Saul on the way, David is considering and pondering whether it's a good idea for him to lock himself in and hold out in the city, and hope that maybe his other kinsmen from Bethlehem and other cities in Judah might come around and resist Saul and say, "Hey, you're just out of line. What are you doing here? This is one of our guys," and that it might actually create that.

David has some sort of plan that he's going with, and now the Lord has told him to go up here. Maybe David thought it was going to play out a certain way, like we often do, but it's not playing out the way that David expected. Now, once again, Saul's coming. Once again, for all the good work and the saving that he's brought in this moment, even obeying the Lord in many ways, now he's got to be on the run again.

The questions might arise once again: "God, you told me to go up here, and now I went and we saved them, and now I've got to leave again? I've got to run again?" Whatever plan he thought was in play, it takes another turn.

Oftentimes in life, this is how it goes: it's never linear. We think every time we get into a lane that we're just going to stay in that lane, and it's just going to continue on for a long time. Yet that's not always the way that it works in life, and so we're faced with pivots. Sometimes those pivots and those changes in direction can discourage us and dishearten us. We try to make sense of: "What is going on in my life? What's God doing? Why is the plan not working? What have I done wrong?"

Sometimes you haven't done anything wrong, because God will use the different plans in life and the pivots and the changes to accomplish his perfect plan. We often think, "This is the thing I need to get there, and that will make me the kind of person that I need to be." But that's not how it works with God. God knows exactly what we need; he knows the mess we are, he knows our strengths, he knows our weaknesses. He will use all of the different things in life to refine us and shape us, and even to draw us near to himself, because we tend to gravitate away from God. We tend to become self-reliant. We tend to come up with our own plan and think, "Everything becomes more focused on us." God will even use those things so that we come to the end of ourselves, when none of the plans and none of the purposes and none of the things are working the way that we thought, and yet we draw near to God in those moments.

Part of the goal of life isn't to fight against those things, but to surrender to the God that is working, and to trust him in the midst of the process.

1. Walk by Faith, Not Faithlessness

As we look at this text today, I want to draw out three things that I want us to remember when we're walking through the difficult things in life, when life is not working out the way that we planned for it to work out.

The first one is to walk by faith, not faithlessness—to ultimately trust the work that God is doing, his plan and his purpose, to trust that he ultimately knows what we need.

Because even in your life, you don't often know what you need. Even when you're a little kid, ever thought about this? You think eating Sweetarts all day long is exactly what you need to be healthy and to flourish. That's what you think! Yet your parents are constantly telling you, "No, you need vegetables. You need a balanced diet. You need all these other things."

I would love it if I could just sit on the couch and watch football and that would make me a healthy person, and I could eat pizza all day. But I need to exercise. I don't even like it all the time. It's hard, and it takes time and effort, but I know that it's good for me.

Sometimes in life, the thing that is good for you, the thing that you actually need, isn't something you would naturally think you need. You don't have all of the insights into your own self all the time, all the self-awareness. We're not as self-aware as we often think we are. God sees every bit and part; he sees us at a DNA and molecular level. He knows all of our story and our background, and he also knows who he wants us to be.

We don't always have the vision for who God wants us to be, how he wants to form and shape and make us more into the image of his Son. Even our picture of whatever that is is not complete, but God knows. So oftentimes, when he tells us to go or when he tells us not to go, we are called to trust the plan, to show faith in the plan, not faithlessness.

That's what we really see in David. David has been obedient to the plan. He's constantly having to go in different directions, and even here, what we find is David is not... because this is always a clue in the Old Testament: oftentimes, if it says that they said to themselves, reasoning in their own mind, that's usually a hint that the character, like Saul or any of these other people in the text, is ultimately trying to figure out how to make good of things in their own head instead of turning to the Lord, instead of trusting their way to the Lord.

Ultimately, that's what David does here: he inquires of the Lord. We see right here twice in the early chapter that David doesn't just come up with the idea of going to Keilah; he asks the Lord, "Shall I go?" Even when he gets an objection from the men, he asks again: "I've heard this, what do you think?"

Confirmation isn't a bad thing. Just because something pops in your head and you're like, "I'm pretty sure I heard God," it's okay sometimes to confirm, to listen to God's word, to take good counsel around you, to find ways to seek confirmation of what the will of the Lord is in this. David is constantly showing a faithfulness in this that he trusts God.

We're reminded from scripture in Proverbs 3:5–6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." We commit our way to the Lord; we don't just take it into our own hands.

Even this—and this is what I like to tell people sometimes—it's hard. I get this. You're like, "I've prayed about it, I'm trying to see where I have the most peace, where I think the Lord is leading me in this, I've taken counsel, and yet I'm not quite sure." One thing that we can always do is know that when we're committing our way to the Lord, we're trusting him, we've already postured our heart the right way. So even when we misstep, God is so sovereign and so good that when we are leaning in the right way, he can cause and work and plan and orchestrate in our lives to make good even when we misstep.

That's what God does even in David's life. God has a plan. Even if David's life looks random and on the run and all over the place, God is using it. He's using it to accomplish his purpose.

Saul, on the other hand, is faithless. We've seen this as we've been studying this text. Saul is always reasoning in his own mind. He's always changing the plan. Even when God specifically tells him to do certain things, Saul debates on it and changes his mind: "Yeah, I think that's optional. I think I'll listen to my own self or the people around me, and listen to them instead of the clear voice of God through the prophets."

When they've been commanded to do something, Saul decides to go his own way, to do his own thing, because ultimately he doesn't trust God. He doesn't trust God's way or God's purpose. He doesn't think that God... this is a reflection at the end of the day: he thinks he and the people around him know better. God won't work out the good plans for his life, God might not rescue him, God might leave him hanging. What's Saul going to do then? He's vulnerable, and Saul's always trying to figure out how to stay one step ahead of things in his life.

When things aren't working out the way he wants, Saul doesn't turn to God; Saul turns to himself. As we have seen throughout this text, he is more and more living a life not just of faithlessness, but deception in his life. Life isn't going his way, and he's more disgruntled. Even here, he assumes he's reading a sign in the clouds when he sees David shut into a city; he thinks God has given a sign: "He's given him into my hand." Yet he doesn't think about all the injustice he's shown David. David is innocent; he suspected David for no reason at all of some sort of treason. Saul is spiraling and faithless.

When life doesn't work the way we want it to—and especially when it starts to really go the way we don't want it to, when it is falling apart and we feel devastated by it—o'ftentimes in those moments of reasoning, you will do one of a few things.

Sometimes you will create another hope: "Plan B over here looks good, maybe I can go this way." But you're really just creating another false hope, another "If I get there, it'll give me what I really need, it'll give me the happiness and the joy and everything I need if I can just get that." It's just another idol. That's what the Bible describes as an idol: when we take something that should fill an ultimate need within us, and we make that ultimately like God, thinking it will give us the joy and the satisfaction and the happiness and the meaning and the purpose and the identity that we seek. "If I get that thing, it'll fulfill me."

But that's only the role that God should have. Only he fills us and tells us who we are. He gives us identity, he gives us purpose, he gives us meaning. We find all of that when our life is lived toward him, to him, and for him alone as God. It's not that other things can't give us joy, it's not that other things can't bring us satisfaction, but they should not fulfill the ultimate desires of our heart, the deepest meanings of our identity. Only God does that.

The other thing that you can do oftentimes in life is try to force it like Saul: "I'm going to make things happen, I'm going to force my way ahead." That's what he does here. Life is not going well, and so Saul is constantly just trying to make and establish his kingship, not by God's power, but by his own sheer will.

When you do that in life, you will become controlling, manipulative, perfectionist, and domineering in your relationships, in your people. Because Saul has chosen this path, he can't even see how it's destroying everything about his life. He didn't even want to be king in the beginning of this, and now he won't let it go! It drives everything about his life and makes him a murderer, as we saw in the last chapter where he obliterates an entire village of people. It makes him turn against his own kids, so there's enmity within his own household, and there's so much turmoil. It's changing Saul; it's making him someone different and not someone that God wants him to be.

In our own lives, we can do that same thing: "I'm going to control it, I'm going to make it happen, I'm going to force it." Sometimes that will turn to bitterness. Maybe for others it turns to sorrow and depression, and we turn to things around us to cope with that sorrow, to fill that void because we feel hopeless and empty. Even in my own life, I have seen years earlier, turning to things and coping, trying to fill that pain, trying to cover that failure. There is no substance or bottle deep enough, vast enough to fill the void. Only God can come in and heal that.

The great thing about this with faithfulness is that sometimes God, in those moments, even when you find yourself in that moment, you can bring the broken pieces of your life, the mess of it, the sadness of it, the frustration of it, and lay them before God, and he can make good of it. All of a sudden, he can begin to put things back together, but he can also begin to reshape it into something else, if only you would turn to him, if only you would trust him and be honest with him about all that is broken, and begin the journey of faith and believe that he is good and that his plan is exactly what you need. Even though it's not maybe what you wanted or you thought you needed, it can be so good. He begins to give you a new vision and a new purpose, a new direction.

This is what God is doing. We know how this story is going to end for David: God will begin to put these pieces together, and he is building David in this moment to be the kind of king that he wants him to be. God is going to use this because God sees and knows David will be a man who has a heart after God. If you look at the vastness of the Psalms, they are rich, and we see so much of the heart of David which was formed through these very years, the character of his being.

2. Give and Receive Godly Encouragement

Second thing that I want us to remember in this is to receive godly encouragement, but also give godly encouragement.

We see this nice little moment here where David is on the run, and Jonathan, Saul's son... it says in verse 16: "And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, 'Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I will be next to you. Saul my father also knows this.'"

It is striking how much Saul is fighting against the inevitable. But here we see the grace of God—how God sends Jonathan. Jonathan is like a gift to David, sent to be like a breath of fresh air, like a cool wind in the desert. David's soul is refreshed not just by the presence of Jonathan, but by what Jonathan brings in this moment.

It says that he strengthened his hand in God. He didn't strengthen it in something vague, he didn't just give him a pep talk, he didn't just say, "It's going to be okay." He reminds him of the truth; he reminds him that God essentially tells him two things: God knows what he's doing, God knows the plan, and do not fear, for you shall be king.

In our own lives, there are times... fellowship is good. Just talking to one another, getting to know one another, the life overlap within the people of God—it's good. But there also need to be places where we encourage one another, where we can give godly encouragement to put courage into one another. As life overlaps, we should in a sense receive it.

The idea of receiving godly encouragement means that you need to be open and vulnerable about your life enough so that people can actually have the opportunity to encourage you. We don't do that in our culture today. We tend to be like, "Oh, everything's perfect, and I'm just good, and I never struggle, and all my life is good and I'm happy," and we come into church with our smiles and we're not honest. You're actually not emotionally honest with the people around you.

There need to be opportunities and moments, and there needs to be the safety and the place... the body of Christ should be a place where you don't have to have it all together, where we've all humbly seen how we're all broken and yet God is healing the pieces of our life, working in our life. None of us is perfect; we've all fallen short of the glory of God. With that humility, we can love and encourage one another.

Be willing to receive that. Don't rob your brother or your sister in the church of the opportunity to just be honest with them so that you may receive the encouragement that they have. Specifically, as I pointed out, godly encouragement strengthens your brother or sister in the truth. Sometimes it's through prayer and praying for them; sometimes it's just sharing a verse, sending a text to somebody, reminding them of the truths of God: "Remind them God is working for you."

In this text, we see even in David's plan Z, when all these pivots and all these things are going wrong, God shows these signs that he's still for David, that he still loves David, that he has not forgotten his purpose and his plans. He speaks to David through the ephod, he gives David direction, he's brought the priest into David's camp, he's surrounded David with all these people who are willing to follow and protect and lay down their life for him, and now he sends the king's own son to him to remind him, "Hey, God has got you. He is working. Just don't lose heart, don't get discouraged, don't be faithless, don't be tempted to turn and develop the wrong heart, don't become bitter about this." He strengthens him and connects him back to God.

In our own lives, when we give godly encouragement, that's what we should do: strengthen one another in God, remind one another of the truth of God, weep with one another, rejoice with one another.

The other thing about that is the giving of godly encouragement: find ways to do that, not just niceties on a Sunday. Get involved. Find ways to go for coffee, to read, do a book club together, to come to Bible study, whatever it is. Find ways that life begins to overlap so that you are not an island, so that you have the opportunity to also give to others around you who so will need that, where God will work through you.

Think about the purpose in all of that, where God works through your own heart so you may bring encouragement even when life is hard. Sometimes that's the best thing you can do when you're in a broken moment, a reset moment, an "I don't know what's going on" moment, a moment when life isn't working the way I wanted—and then you go in and bring encouragement to someone. Think of how even modern psychology talks about that: sometimes when you're on the midst of a breakdown and life is not going the way, the best thing you can do is actually meet a need that is greater than your own. Oftentimes we see how God just works in that—the purpose, the encouragement you get just from bringing something to someone because God is working through you in those things.

Give godly encouragement, receive godly encouragement, but see also how God has surrounded you with people, with brothers and sisters. That's what we're all invited to: to be part of a local community of believers where we bear one another's burdens in love and we encourage one another and we lift one another up—not just like a social club, but in God, in the truths of God, connecting one another to God.

God will do that where he, through his grace, doesn't leave us alone, but he gives us clear signs of his graces and his mercy and his work in our life by putting other brothers and sisters in our life who will love us, who will be patient with us, who will endure us, who will hope the best for us, who will weep with us—all the beautiful things that should happen within the body of Christ, within the local church.

3. God's Providence Is Working for You

The third thing is to remember that God's providence is working for you.

Providence—what is that? Ultimately, the idea of providence: if God is the ruler of all the earth, he has a plan, and God's providence is working out his redemptive plan in the world. God has a plan to rescue and to save, and so his providence is all of his action to care for and to work in such a way to bring about his redemptive plan here on earth, here for his people, here for creation. God is moving everything in that direction.

In fact, if you just look at the arc of scripture, that's what we see. We see God creates the world, and then there's the fall, and everything just begins to become shattered into broken pieces. Does God in chapter 3 just say, "Well, let me just throw that one in the wastebasket, we're done, deuces, we're out"? No! He actually moves in those moments to begin to call Adam and Eve, and for the rest of scripture, God is working a redemptive plan—working a redemptive plan here in David, and working it when Christ comes, and continuing even today through his providence to be working a redemptive plan.

God loves you enough not to leave you alone, and not to let you have plan A, but to let you have his plan, no matter how much you may resist it. David finds that as he is submitting, as he is faithful, as he continues to abide in it even though it is hard, he's beginning to see God's redemptive plan in these little graces of how God is working, God reminding him, and God even sending encouraging words through people that he is working for him.

We see here in verse 14 where it says: "And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand."

I think also we see that Saul and his men were closing in on David. This is the end of the chapter there, that second piece where it says they were closing in on his men to capture them, and a messenger came to Saul saying, "Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid against the land." So Saul leaves.

You can't really... the narratives don't always capture this, but if you'll slow down and read this, the storyline changes really fast: David moves, Saul comes. David moves, Saul comes. Then they're on the other side of the mountain, and Saul divides his forces, and they're coming around on both sides. The tension of the story in this moment is intense! This is it—David's about to be surrounded, he's going down, this is not good. Everything should really crumble in this moment; we should see David freaking out and everything going wrong.

But then God intervenes. God does something. All Bible commentators recognize right here that the author is showing us that even in this moment of peril, even in the moment of danger, God is at work to preserve David. He's working his redemptive plan.

Hear me now: that doesn't mean that everything goes the way that you think it should. That doesn't mean that life is always going to be great, that doesn't mean that there's not going to be brokenness if you start living your life for God. This world is fallen, and it is imperfect. But the thing that is true is God's redemptive plan is bigger than this world, and it is bigger than this life. God is fulfilling his ultimate plan to change you, to shape you, to redeem you, to bring you to himself, so that one day, even through death, he might raise you up in himself. He creates everything, makes everything right, so that he might heal and bring you into this place.

If that is true, if there is a God who creates a new creation where all is remade, all is renewed, all is whole, and brings you into that, then what in this life can be taken from you when that is true? So many things can be stripped down, so many bad newses can come, but that can't be taken away. If you are sealed and you are Christ's, then that doesn't go—nothing in this life will change that fact, nothing will change his promise: not sword, not peril, not death, nothing can separate you from the love of God.

So know that life is broken. Know that sometimes, "Hey, it's not working out the way I thought. Where's God in this? This person died that I loved... what is God doing?" He knows what he's doing, and he is working good. If everything in this life fails, if the mountains shake, as it says in Psalm 46, and are cast into the sea, we will not be shaken. You need not be shaken; you know what the truths of scripture remind you, that God is working his plan, his redemptive plan, and he will make sure it happens.

We see an instance here constantly of God working about that plan, and he will bring it about. Just in life, hold fast to that. Don't fall into Saul's place where he rejects it. Because ultimately, this is what we find about Saul: when you are not submitting to the will of God in your life, God's providence is trying to draw you to himself, it's trying to work good things. When you will not submit to it, then ultimately you find providence kind of working against you. You find that, "Like, you're a threat to David, so I'm going to thwart and frustrate your plans." God will often do that in our lives.

Ultimately, he wants to still bring about redemption, but when you are pitting yourself against God, you find like you're on the losing end of that providence. God wants to redeem you, and you keep kicking against it, you keep bucking against it instead of just submitting to it and allowing and believing and trusting, so that now you are just almost like a conduit and a receiver of that goodness over you and over your life.

Where are you at in your own life? Are you one who is trusting and holding fast, seeking, leaning in more and more to how God is working? Even if you can't make sense of it, bringing God the broken pieces of your life, saying, "I don't even understand, and I don't know what to make, and I'm in the... I can't repair it, and I'm mad, I'm afraid, it doesn't look good," and letting God make good of that, letting him speak to you, letting him heal your broken heart?

Are you resisting that? Are you still content to kind of pivot, to do your own thing, to control the outcome, to grow bitter, to turn and cope, or to turn to an idol and hope? Or trusting the one who made you, who breathed life into you, and who ultimately will save you and give you just what you need?

Can you trust that? Can you walk in that? So that when you walk through hard things in this life, when life doesn't go the way you want, you walk by faith, you receive godly encouragement, and you remember that his providence is working for you.

Saul had a plan, and it was not going the way he wanted for it to go, so he took matters into his own hands and it is destroying his life. David had a plan; it didn't go the way he thought, but he trusted in the Lord, and God is speaking to him and encouraging him and working and saving him.

Christ had a desire: "If there is any way, let this cup pass from me. If there's any other way to not be separated from the Father, not to carry the weight of all of this, if there is another way..." But ultimately he submitted to the will of the Father in heaven. He laid his life down even to the point of death, death on a cross, and through that God worked his ultimate plan to save us. He trusted his Father, and we are called to do the same.

Let's pray.

Lord, we just know that this life, time and time again, does not work out the way that we expected, and it's filled with trial, it's filled with tribulation. And yet we are reminded: "Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world," is what you say to us. We are thankful that you have a good plan, and it cannot be changed or thwarted—not human institution, not government, not power, not person—nothing can separate us from the love of God and from your plan, ultimately your good plan working for your people.

I just pray, Lord, that each day our hearts would submit. And Lord, where those who feel broken, those who maybe are experiencing all the pieces sort of shattered, that they can come and they can find mercy, they can find healing, they can receive encouragement from you, but also from their brother and sister and from the people of God around them to speak that encouragement over them, to remind them of these truths. I just pray that even through this word, Lord, your word would speak to those who are dealing with those things.

We just pray all this in your name. Amen.

Before we sing and respond to the Lord, maybe just one thing. I so want to emphasize this, but if there are in your lives the pieces... I don't know, I just feel this sort of emphasis on this this morning, but you can bring those to the Lord. I think there just needs to be a moment in your own life, maybe even this morning right before we sing, where you just acknowledge that. You just acknowledge that before the Lord. God already knows; he just wants you to be honest enough to acknowledge it and just to bring that to him.

I don't know, this morning I just... it just is burning on me to say that to you. So maybe even just for a second, just acknowledge that if that's in you, if that thing is going on, if there's those pieces, and I want you to trust that the Lord can make good. Faith isn't always about seeing, but you can know. Scripture reminds us again and again: you can know. Know that he is merciful, know that he is good. God is sweet to his people. I have seen in my own life many a time when he took the pieces and he made them good, and I'm so thankful. It's things like that that we sing and proclaim.