Cave or Stronghold

I was preparing to teach about David: A man after God's own heart and I learned some interesting things.

David was hiding away in a cave after being anointed to be king, after killing Goliath.
I had just gone on my first interview since graduating but now I was still without a job and without any other prospects of getting a job

David was moping and mourning and wondering why God had allowed this to happen and why Saul was chasing him.
I was the same way...minus Saul of course.

Suddenly a group of men came into the cave to hide away from their own problems. David was in his confusing mess and here are these men who come to him for guidance
I realized that even in my own self-pity and problems, that I still have a responsibility to the people around me to minister the Gospel of Christ.

Chuck Swindoll wrote in the book that at this point is where he thinks that David wrote two psalms: 34 and 57. As I read these psalms and I read what Swindoll wrote about David, I thought about my own life.

How did I get here? Why am I here? I don't deserve to be here! Everything within me said that "as an anointed king, I deserved better". I'm sure David thought the same thing. Either way, we were both in this cave. So here are these people looking to David for help and guidance and David eventually looks to God. So while their eyes were on David, David's eyes were on God... no one could go wrong!

Long story short, these disillusioned, broken, hurting people became David's mighty men. It wasn't when everything got better, it wasn't when David became king, it was in the midst of that cave.

In 1 Samuel 22, it says that David went out of the cave to talk to Saul and then David went back to a stronghold. This cave that David found fear and confusion; the cave where it looked like every hurting and broken person gathered was the same place that provided a sense of security... it was a fortified place.

Out of this cave emerged David and 600 mighty men! This encouraged me so much because while I realized that I still have a responsibility to point to God, in my place of hurt and confusion and even anger, God uses it to make it a stronghold. When I emerge, I'm not coming out alone, I'm coming out with all the disillusioned, broken, hurting, desperate, lonely and every other type of person that sought answers and they will be mighty men and women of God!!

So really it was never about David, just like it's not about me. It was then, is now and forever will be about God. It's about God taking a willing person, even when they're hurting, to use them to point to the cross. David knew full well of God's grace and provision (as do I). I think those people gathered to him because they heard of what his God had done for him. They were probably shocked when they found someone "just like them" but I can think of God saying "Don't worry. This is to show them that there is still in God in all of Israel". So yes, David had a breakdown, as did I, but it was what happened after that made the difference.

David didn't stay there and I didn't either. We both were determined to get up and fight. We both knew that the God who taught us to kill the lion and the bear, the God who killed Goliath was surely equipped to handle anything else that came our way - including not being yet in the job that was promised to us.

I would be remissed if I didn't say that David eventually became king..... and that I eventually got a job. Neither came without a struggle but looking back, that cave prepared us for being the best person to handle the tasks that the job required.... and even if we couldn't, we more than proved that God could :)