Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to another morning devotion with Brother Mark, where we are walking together on a walk with Christ. Today is April the 21st, 2022. While I love reading through the Bible every year, when reading through the scripture, we're able to get a refresher course on the lives of the Old Testament saints. We get fresh insight into their struggles. We realize they're normal people just like us, with faults, failures, insecurities, and sometimes a lack of faith. Yesterday, one of those examples came to me as I was reading through 1 Samuel. I read once again the story of Saul pursuing David. David would not touch the Lord's anointed. Twice, David had the opportunity to take the life of Saul. Both times he refused. At the end of 1 Samuel 16, we read these verses, I'm sorry, 1 Samuel 26, we read these verses in verses 22 through 25. And David answered and said, behold the king's spear and let one of the young men come over and fetch it. The Lord rendered to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness. For the Lord delivered thee into my hand today, but I would not stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed. And behold, as thy life was set much by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord, and let him deliver me out of all tribulation. Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son, my son David, thou shalt do both do great things and also shall still prevail. So David went on his way and Saul returned to his place. So what do we realize here? David has been faithful to Saul and Saul realizes that David shall do great things and shall prevail. Now that story is familiar to me. I've heard messages preached about David's refusal to touch the Lord's anointed. So this part of the account was not striking. However, the next verse was, let me read to you first Samuel 27 one. And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape, speedily escape into the land of the Philistines and Saul shall despair of me to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel. So shall I escape out of his hand. Wait, what? What did David just say in his heart? I know that one day I will perish at the hand of Saul. Didn't Saul just claim that David would be victorious? Didn't Saul just say that he understood that David would do great things? Didn't God just cause a deep sleep to come upon Saul's soldiers so that David could slip in and take Saul's crews of oil or crews of water and spear? How could David all of a sudden say that he would perish at the hand of Saul? That is striking to me. But you know, when you stop and you think about it, this happens sometimes no matter how well we know the promises of God. We hear the word. We see the word work in our lives. Then circumstances arise in our lives. We can't see how God will work them out to our good. We give the circumstances too much power in our lives. We lose faith. We begin to doubt. All of a sudden, our perception of life changes. we begin to walk in fear. If we are not careful, we can fall into despair. So today I want you to be encouraged from this story in the life of David. I want you to understand that if David at times lacked faith and had a misunderstanding of what God was doing in his life, that is natural for it to happen to you also. Understand that a natural result of difficult circumstances is sometimes lack of faith. However, I also want you to realize that the end result of David's life, even though he expresses a sense of doubt, the promises of God prevail. I want you to be encouraged not to let the circumstances of life get the best of you. Believe that God loves you, is at work in your life and in your circumstances, and also believe that he'll work all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. The circumstances may look dire, but God's going to work it together for our good. And we just need to be encouraged not to let the circumstances of life overwhelm us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for revealing to us the examples of your followers. Thank you for showing us that they were not always stalwarts of faith. Help us to be encouraged by their lives so that our faith will be increased. Help us to be encouraged to know that you're greater than our circumstances, and help us to trust you with our lives. We thank you that we can, and we thank you for Jesus who makes it all possible. It's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen. Hope you're having a good week. Till tomorrow, this is Brother Mark signing off.