What Are You Reaching For? | 1 Samuel 30 | Crossroads Daily

Yeah. Don't you get shut. Sorry, you guys didn't know you signed up for karaoke with Caroline, I can't sing. But like, the words of that song, like, come on, my soul. Sometimes you have to encourage your own soul. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people, just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. Hey, I'm Chuck. I'm Caroline. I'm Victor. I'm Chris. We just did an icebreaker with our middle names. We should, we should have introduced ourselves with our middle names. Yeah. There we go. All right. All right. I'm Dewan. Kelly. Manuel. Robert. Why are you laughing, Chris? Just have never said that, like, I know, except one time I worked at Dairy Queen, my first job ever. Okay. There was another Chris already. So they made me go by Robert for months. Wow. I don't, I want a Robert to serve me ice cream. I didn't want to serve anyone. I want Robert to be my accountant. That's fair. That wasn't fair. Uh, well, hey, we, we got two more chapters left in first Samuel. We want to talk about like a long book with lots of stories in it. This is the story of the future king, David, but he's not king yet because the current King Saul is trying to kill him. And so this is a lot of David's struggle period, right? He's running from Saul. He's, you know, honoring God and not killing Saul, and he has the opportunity to. And so we come to today where there's another attack on David's life, this time not from Saul, but from a whole other group of people, another group of enemies. And in the midst of it, he loses his family. Uh, when I say loses, his family's taken away. All of his belongings are taken away. It's a bad, bad, bad, bad day. And not only that, but the people who are supposed to be his friends are blaming him and saying, maybe we should kill you. Maybe we should stone you because maybe this is a curse of what happened to you. So David's going through it. And my guess is that we've had some times in our lives that have felt that way when we're going through it. And the question is, what do you typically reach for when you're going through it? I know this is a, you know, Bible podcast, but the answer doesn't only have to be God because sometimes we reach for other things. So we can be real. What do you reach for when things are falling apart? I reach for escape. When I'm at my worst, I am looking for distractions or things to take me out of the circumstances that I'm currently in. So for me, and it doesn't even necessarily be, it's not necessarily bad things, right? There are things that I can, I would normally do for enjoyment just like 10 times more, right? So frequency for me is I will find a good book,

and I will stick my nose in it and escape to another world for as long as I possibly can, to the point where I will, I will not deal with anything else going on in my life. And instead, I just choose to read, because I can ignore what's going on with me. I can tell you later that. Yeah, for me, my own strength. I'm like, well, if nobody else is going to do it, nobody else is going to help me, things are not going to change, I'm going to do it. And oftentimes, almost always, I end up exhausted. And then I don't want to do anything else. So I just want to like, you know what, I don't even know this is worth it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can relate to that too. Yeah, the numbing and turning inward for me for sure. I think the thought is like my reality is scary or distressful in some way. So let me escape to a reality that doesn't exist. So that could be YouTube, that could be scrolling, that could just be anything that's like, my mind doesn't have to be in this present world. And it's like, I can gaslight myself, like, I think if my house was crumbling down, my family's gone, and I'm sitting in ashes, I could be like, Oh, look at this puppy learning sign language. Like I could, I could just be like, totally disconnect from what's happening to convince myself like everything's okay right now. And it's crazy how easy it is to do that. It really is. It really is. I just keep thinking about it too. It's like, it's because we're in pain. And I think there's just something in us as people, man, we want to avoid pain. We just want the pain to go away. And you know, I'm sure anybody listening can relate to that. Like, if there's a place in your life that's painful, you just want it to go away. And yeah, I love this. I love these words. So this is from verse six, it says, after all this stuff happens, says David was greatly distressed for the people spoke of stoning him because of all the people were bitter and soul, each for his sons and daughters. But then it says this, David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God. And I love that for a couple reasons. One, I love that David went to the Lord, right? That he knew, like, I need a source of strength that's greater than me. I love that it says he strengthened him. a friend who comes along and strengthens you. Sometimes the friend's not there. Sometimes you're on your own. And one of the gifts of the Bible, one of the gifts of even a story like David, is this becomes a way for us to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. So I want you to think about a time when maybe God brought you strength from a unique place, something that you weren't expecting. And I'll start. And I'm actually thinking about it because my friend Victor was a part of it. I'll never forget a meal we shared, spare ribs, and Jason's house.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. Clear. Like one of these meals that I'll never forget, because it was a moment when I was really, really discouraged about the calling in my ministry and in my life. And I didn't have what it took to go forward. I didn't like I was, I was ready to give up. And God used Victor and the other group of men that were in my life at that time to literally put courage into me. Like I didn't have it. And as I was eating the ribs, I was eating their courage. Like God used that meal to deeply strengthen me for something that I'm still pursuing today. And that was, man, that had to be what? Six plus years ago. I think more. Yeah. More than that. Right. So that's before you launched on the vital. It was right before we launched was just 2020. Yeah. It reminds me of that song. Gratitude, I think it is where it's like, come on, my soul. Yeah. Don't you get shut. Sorry, you guys didn't know you signed up for karaoke with heroin. I can't sing. But like the words of that song, like, come on, my soul. Sometimes you have to encourage your own soul. And I was just reading in Galatians this morning about like the difference between your flesh and the Holy Spirit. And like those are two things that are constantly at war in you. And so I think whether we're anything but being alone with our own thoughts or no, Lord, you've given me your spirit. And I just need to encourage that in me. I think a way that helps me is to take a minute and remember the ways that God's been faithful to me or other people around me. Because I think that's one of the biggest things that we can fall into as humans as we are so forgetful. And so to just take a minute and remember, hey, God's been faithful, and he will continue to be faithful. That's how I kind of like strengthen my soul. I love it. I love it. I love it. Gratitude is a weapon. Yeah. Literally. Gratitude is a weapon in the fight. Yeah. So true. Caroline, that scripture, what you were referencing reminded me of David also in the Psalms when he's like his soul. He's talking about how his soul is downcast. Like he doesn't believe any truth about God in that moment. And he's like, why are you downcast my soul? Like put your hope in God. Like he's hyping himself up. Like you, he's putting energy in a place that like hope does not exist. And I feel like for me in moments of despair and where I feel like I need to find strength in the Lord, it means becoming weak in other areas. And I think sometimes it's like, well, I need to, I can be strong everywhere else and then add on just the strength of God into my life. And I'm good. It's like, sometimes it means I need to become weak in other areas. And that might be fasting or just like pulling something away and being like, I'm relying on these other things to

also give me strength. Let me take a break from video games or YouTube or food for a certain period of time to remind myself, these ultimately don't give me strength. Like the Lord does. But when everything is strong, then nothing is really strong. So it's like I need to make other things weak at times to see the Lord is the only strength I need. I love that picture. You know what makes me think about is like if I was weird, if I walked in here and crutches today, but was fully able to walk, you know what a loving God would do? At some point, he kicked the crutches away. You can come out. He wouldn't let me continue to, yeah, have these cr, you don't need them. Right. You're going to be okay. Right. It's a walk. Yeah, you can walk. And at some point, out of love, he's going to take the crutches away. I think you're right. Like there is sometimes where God maybe has us getting weaker in some other areas, right? It could be like, oh man, I'm in a period where God's calling me to fast or I'm in a period where God is calling me to maybe pull away from some friendships and trust more on him. And it feels like that's not helping me get stronger, but actually it's like, no, these are crutches and it's time for the crutches to go away. I love you. It's a powerful picture. Yeah, last week, it was a mixed week. I had the opportunity to spend the first half at Alred in Texas, a prison where we have a lot of people probably watching and listening to what we're talking right now. And it was great. And while I was out there, I got an email that came with bad news. You know, I've been working hard and almost to the point that getting tired and thinking, I'm going to get this, this amount of resource and I didn't. So come back and I seek, I seek out to a friend and he's reminded me that, you know, David had God, he turned to God. And then later in story, Jesus comes, you know, we have Jesus and Jesus is how you need to live so I can leave you with a whole experience. there, you know, and at times, I think something we feel alone, we feel like there's nobody there for us. Yeah. Yet the Holy Spirit is within us. You were talking about you were reading this in Galatians earlier this morning. And I, as I was having this conversation, I started crying, you know, because I've been relying on my efforts until I got enough to keep going. And I got reminded, and I felt a strong conviction that in the Holy Spirit has been there waiting all that time. And I don't want to rely on myself. I don't want to rely on my own strength, but the

Holy Spirit, you know, that it's available and offer. And so my posture changed to, you know what, I'm honored that the Holy Spirit gets to live in me. Yeah. And that changed everything for me. As I got in the middle of this difficulty, I'm honored that you get to be in me with me. And so I'm open to what we have to do. And it really changed. It was hard. Again, I was crying, but it was so powerful. Yeah, you strengthened yourself in God. Yeah, you strengthened yourself in God. I just want to leave you with this today. I'm sure there's a place where things feel like they're falling apart. Or if not, maybe you just came through a season of that and you know, it's coming again. And I just want to encourage you, like, we serve a God who knows that. And when it seems like nothing else is around you, you have God. Wherever you are today, you have God and you can strengthen yourself in God. [MUSIC]