A Running Start

Have you ever felt like you stepped backwards? Sometimes we get in certain situations and we actually have regressed. However, a great deal of the time we haven’t lost ground, but instead we’re being set-up for a great comeback.

Maybe you once owned a house, but now you’re renting. Maybe you had a high-paying career with great prestige, but now you’re working in what seems like a dead end job. Maybe you lived in a community where you enjoyed the best of everything- great stores, great activities, great climate, you name it- it was there to enjoy. Now you are living in a remote area with no friends and nothing to do for entertainment. Maybe you were in a close relationship and now it is over. There are many things that can cause us to think we’ve taken a step backwards and gone in a wrong direction.

Then David asked the Lord, “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?”And the Lord told him, “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!” I Samuel 30:8 (New Living Translation, NLT)

It looked like David had definitely taken a step backwards. While he and his men were gone, Amalekites raided their camp and took everything- women, children, flocks, everything. His men, who were upset by this, talked of stoning their own leader David. What a loss it seemed to be. But David encouraged himself in the Lord and inquired of God. God told him to run after the Amalekites and promised he would get everything back. And if you carefully read I Samuel 30, we see that David did exactly that, plus he got enough spoil from what the Amalekites had taken from the Philistines and others, to share it with others. Had the situation at Ziklag not occurred, David and his men would have never aquired the extra material goods that they did.

Sometimes a bad situation can actually be a set-up for something better than you’ve ever had before. Like a runner or a long-jumper sometimes steps back a little to get a running start so they can go faster and further, we may be stepping back a bit to get a running start into the destiny God has for us. Don’t look at your situation as a set-back or a loss. Trust God and understand that you’re getting a running start. Don’t lose heart and soon you will be going faster and further than you ever thought possible, and you will be living a better life than you’ve ever lived before.