Topic: Recovering What’s Lost
Today’s Scripture: 1 Samuel 30:1–6,18–19(NIV)
Key Verse: But David found strength in the Lord his God. – 1 Samuel 30:6
Bible in a Year: Leviticus 1–3; Matthew 24:1–28
INSIGHT: When God enabled David to rescue abducted loved ones (1 Samuel 30:1–20), his success called attention to the failures of Saul to help his own family. Outnumbered by the Philistine army, Saul asked God for help, but he received no answer (28:4–6). Desperate, he turned to a medium in an attempt to call back from the dead his faithful advisor Samuel (vv. 7–9). Samuel did appear, but he told Saul what he didn’t want to hear. The next day the army of Israel would be defeated and Saul, together with his sons, would die (vv. 16–20).
Saul and David both helped show us our need for another King who, by breaking the power of sin and death, would come to the rescue even of His enemies.
Our Daily Bread Devotional 7th February 2021 Message:
At the phone store, the young pastor steeled himself for bad news. His smartphone, accidentally dropped during our Bible class, was a total loss, right? Actually, no. The store clerk recovered all of the pastor’s data, including his Bible videos and photos. She also recovered “every photo I’d ever deleted,” he said. The store also “replaced my broken phone with a brand-new phone.” As he said, “I recovered all I had lost and more.”
David once led his own recovery mission after an attack by the vicious Amalekites. Spurned by Philistine rulers, David and his army discovered the Amalekites had raided and burned down their town of Ziklag—taking captive “the women and everyone else in it,” including all their wives and children (1 Samuel 30:2–3). “So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep” (v. 4). The soldiers were so bitter with their leader David that they talked of “stoning him” (v. 6).
“But David found strength in the Lord his God” (v. 6). As God promised, David pursued the Amalekites and “recovered everything the Amalekites had taken . . . . Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back” (vv. 18–19). As we face spiritual attacks that “rob” us even of hope, may we find renewed strength in God. He will be with us in every challenge of life.
Reflect & Pray
What spiritual attacks or life loss are you experiencing? Turning from your despair to God, how will you find renewed strength in Him?
God, help me to find hope in You even as I face life’s challenges.
Patricia Raybon writes bridge-building books that help believers move big mountains. An award-winning author and journalist, she writes to encourage people in the Word, inspiring believers to love God and each other. A supporter of Bible-translation projects worldwide, she is author of I Told the Mountain to Move, My First White Friend, her One Year® devotional, God’s Great Blessings, and Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Past to Peace. A mother and wife, she and husband Dan, a retired educator, live in her beloved home state of Colorado. Join her on the journey at patriciaraybon.com
