Here is a man who never lost a battle; and now in front of him is a total disaster. Not only did he have a major setback and disappointment; the second thing that happened was: he was rejected by his own men!
This is not the first time that David has been rejected. David was rejected by his family; by King Saul; by the nation; and by the men that he had reached out and helped, and saved, risking his life. David understood the pain of rejection, and now the men that had stood with him for the last 13 years - they too are saying: we better get rid of David, he's a poor leader.
They are about to snuff out the only hope they have for their future. This is what people do! When they get hurt, they want someone to blame, someone to get angry at. When people get upset, when they lose someone, they get really angry, and will lash out at the person nearest them.
He's facing two major things: deep disappointment, and deep rejection. He was overwhelmed with grief, and extremely alone. Have you ever felt, in a time like that, extremely alone, disappointed, and there's no human person to support you? That was David's condition at that time.
What you don't see, is that when we read the Bible, we know what comes - we've got the benefit. We can just flip the page and oh, he becomes a king! We can look at it and see what God did; but you can't imagine what it's like for the man standing there. He doesn't know what the future's going to be like. He's just lost everything that he's invested his life into. It's like a financial collapse, and he's lost everything, including his wife and children. That's the level of disaster.
There are many people facing that kind of thing now. What would you do? Would you have the courage to continue? Would you have the courage, in spite of it all, to believe God, and continue? That's the thing that David had to face - have you got it in you to continue? What do you do when there's no one to turn to, and all your world has fallen apart?
Whatever has been built into your life in the days preceding that will be the thing that will come to the surface. If you have never built a relationship with God, then when that time comes, you'll be angry, and shaking your fist at God. If you've never built a consistent relationship with God, and learned how to lean on Him, then when a crisis like that happens, you will fall apart.
I have seen over the years, when people find their world falling apart, they fall apart themselves. They get angry. They blame the church; they blame God; they blame this one and that one; and then marriages fail, all kinds of stupid things happen, because they never learned to just have the courage to continue the course.
1 Samuel 30:6 – “David was greatly distressed…”
He was pressed, besieged, and immensely overwhelmed. He was absolutely devastated, numbed, too much weeping. What do you do now, when the pressure is on?
“… But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”
What controls your life? When you face some pressure, what controls your life? Do your feelings control your life, so when your feelings are up, we come to church, and we serve the Lord; but when you're feelings are down, no, I don't think I'll go. Do your circumstances control your life? Do your friends control your life? Does money, or your things control your life? What controls your life?
At the center of David's life was a relationship with God. He said: my life and my destiny are wrapped up in the Lord. Whatever the Lord started - He can finish!