Roadblocks
Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 29-31
I gave you a long section of Scripture today, and if you don’t read the whole thing, I get it. So, you see the point I am making, let me summarize these three chapters. In chapter 29 the Philistines, among whom David had been living, refused to let him and his men go out to battle with them.
In chapter 30, David and his men, after being rejected by the Philistines, return to Ziklag to discover the Amalekites had raided the city, burned it to the ground, and taken all of their wives and children captive. David seeks the Lord’s direction and is told to go in pursuit of the Amalekites. He overtakes them, defeats them, recovers what was taken, and also takes the bounty of the Amalekites.
In chapter 31, the last chapter of 1 Samuel, we are told the story of the battle between Saul’s armies and the Philistines and how Saul and his three sons were killed. This, of course, included David’s beloved friend, Jonathan.
Now, let’s play a little game of “what if.” Of course, that is a sketchy game to play because we don’t know for sure how things would have turned out under different scenarios. But for the sake of argument, what if David had not been rejected by the Philistine leaders? We can be certain that would have meant he would have gone to battle with them.
That would have meant he would not have returned to Ziklag in time to be able to recover his and his followers' families from the Amalekites. They would have been long gone and back in their territory before David ever found out about their raid on Ziklag. It would have been disastrous. Even as it was, David’s men were on the verge of a revolt which included killing David to exact retribution for what had happened. But because the Philistines rejected David, he and his men returned to Ziklag in time to rescue their families from the Amalekites.
Had David’s help not been rejected by the Philistines, he would have been with them in a battle against his people. He would have been fighting against Saul and his armies. We don’t know if he would have engaged Saul. Maybe the Philistine generals were right and he would have turned against them. But either way, David would have been on the battlefield where Saul and his sons were killed. He would have been either directly or indirectly involved in the death of King Saul, something he had adamantly been opposed to doing up to that point.
There is a good lesson for us in David’s experience. It can hurt and it can be frustrating to have doors slammed in our faces. It is especially painful when that happens as a result of someone else’s negative judgment about our abilities, motives, or experience. Being told “no” is never fun. But we need to see that these roadblocks are often used by God to turn toward a better path, one that will do more good, and one that will keep us from potentially harmful outcomes.
I hate to quote a country song, but here I go anyway, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.”
