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you ready for some good news let's go to first samuel chapter 22. we're going to pick up on a little section we've read before but i'm going to expound upon it more today first samuel 22 verse 1. just going to read about five verses there and then we're going to jump in first samuel 22 verse 1. david departed from there there being gath he had gone remember he ran to gath to try to hide and was not a very good idea it was goliath's hometown and he was carrying goliath sword with him so not a real you know people do dumb things and that was a dumb one for david but he he's departing from there and um escaped into the cave of adulum and when his brother's in all of his father's house heard it they went down to to him there and everyone who was in distress now look at this everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul or discon dis um discontented is probably another word for that bitter and soul they gathered to him and he became captain over them what a motley group it's kind of like everybody who would be considered by society a loser david says come over here because we're going to turn losers into winners and there were about 400 of them 400 men david went from there to mispa of moab and he said to the king of moab please let my father and mother stay with you until i know what god will do for me and he left them with the king of moab and he they stayed there with the king all the time that david was in the stronghold there was they were staying with david in moab and then the prophet gad came to david and said do not remain here in the stronghold but depart and go to the land of judah and so david departed and went into the forest of hereth yeah that's an amen in child speak we're going to look this morning in more detail of three qualities in david's life if remember we started this sermon sermon series we talked about the three things that david did wrong and then we talked about three six things that david did right and the first three i kind of just skimmed over real quickly and really spent my time on the last three well i'm going to come back circle back and i want to spend some time on those first three things that david did right this morning before i get started i want to share with you just an excerpt from i think it sets it up well an excerpt from a book that i read some 35 years ago by robert fulgram fulghum and and it's i find his book is still true today and the title of his book and some of you are going to recognize this the title of his book is all i really need to know about life i learned in kindergarten and just a little excerpt from that all i really need to know about how to live i learned in kindergarten wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school these are the things that i learned share everything play fair don't hit people put things back where you found them clean up your own mess and don't take things that aren't yours say you're sorry when you hurt somebody wash your hands before you eat and always flush the toilet warm cookies and cold milk are good for you i still believe that learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some and take a nap every afternoon double down on that one and when you go out into the world watch for traffic hold hands and stick together be aware of wonder remember the little seed in the plastic cup i think we all did that sometime didn't we the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why but we're all kind of like that you know goldfish and hamsters and white mice and that even the little seed in the plastic cup they all die and so do we remember the book about dick and chain and the first words you learned the biggest word of all look everything you need to know is there somewhere in kindergarten think of what a better world it would be if we all had cookies and milk about three o'clock in the afternoon and then we lay down with our blankets for a nap or if we just had a basic policy in our nation to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes it is still true that no matter how old you are when you get out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together sometimes though we don't have a world like that do we and our situation becomes more like the one that david is facing here in first samuel 22. his nemesis saul is is not eating milk and cookies and he's not taking a peaceful nap in the afternoon and it just instead he's clenching his fist and he's his heart is wrenched and and rather than holding hands with david he's after to kill him and i'm suggesting to you that there are times in all of our lives we are not going to find life idealic or docile or even peaceful it is going to be tumultuous difficult or unforeseen circumstances are going to cloud our vision and our path there will be moments when even hot tears will roll down our face when we are confused and distressed and maybe even upset with god or with circumstances or with other people even family or friends we tend to get upset when things are not in our control in terms of what our own personal choice would elect what do you do in those times we've seen that we all can make mistakes just like david did you know he lied and he lost his faith and became afraid and he made dumb blunders like we mentioned taking goliath's own sword into his hometown tucked inside his clothes and we've all done stupid things and we've all made decisions where we wish we could have a do-over like i think a few month weeks ago i even preached a message on do having a do-over if you could then we looked at some of the things that david did right as examples for us and when life gets out of control and and this message today could either be a lifeline for you if you're going through some difficulties now or it could be something to recall when things do get out of control there are three specific principles i want to look at today in detail within these five verses that things that david did that were positive the first thing was this he did not go through his problem alone in verses one and two david left gath and escaped to the cave of adulum and when his brothers and his father's household heard about it they went down to him there and all those who were in distress and in debt or discontented gathered around him and he became the leader of about 400 men who were with him he didn't remain alone there's an old negro spiritual i remember singing in my high school days that's a long time ago it caused something like nobody knows the trouble i've seen nobody knows but jesus you know the other part goes sometimes i'm up sometimes i'm down oh yes lord sometimes i'm almost to the ground oh yes lord unfortunately i find myself singing that song from time to time that's so true nobody knows the trouble i've seen at least that's what the enemy wants you to think and unfortunately why those words may be wonderful sentiment they are really not the expression of reality of course others have known trouble like what you've seen others around david knew the same kind of situation he was going through that's why they were drawn to him they gathered to him paul writes in first corinthians 10 13 that says there is not a single temptation or test that comes against you except what is common to man and so while the particular facts of everyone's experiences may be different the kinds of issues that we have to deal with in life have a commonality to them and we need to seek the association and company of others who can identify with us not to have a pity party but to give us strength we need one another and in turn we can be a strength to one another i believe the bible calls that iron sharpening iron and so david gathered around him what i call the three ds the debtor the distressed the discontented and these people who know who they are and what they're suffering from in the comfy of one another become a mighty band of people they go into that cave and they are are whipped and wounded and they are struggling and they're suffering but they emerge out of that cave as a vanguard for a new kingdom and a powerful healing agent for the good in the world in fact in the just the next chapter in 23 they actually come into the aid of a a of a community that had just gotten attacked by the philistines and his band of armies went in and defeated the philippines philistines in that case i think the principle of a doulas abdullah's cave is is one of the reasons why support groups have been so successful for healing comes when people gather together who have the same problems and admit it and talk about it and begin to ask god for healing and encourage one another and above all stay honest with themselves one of the dangers that we have in in some members of churches and christians that walk the walk is that on the one hand we're we're told to press and strive towards sanctification and perfection and we don't want to admit that we somehow have fallen a little short maybe we didn't reach our goals for that week or whatever and and yet on the other hand we have this desperate need to be honest and if we we elevate the site of sanctification our problems what instead of we elevating sanctification we focus on our problems what happens is we gradually become a people who will never admit that we're really going through trouble or difficulty how many times have you walked up to somebody and said how are you doing you all just gave me the answer you're so spontaneous and here's the question how honest is it do you say fine when you're really not fine why do you do that well i just don't feel ready to talk about it right now wouldn't a better answer be i'm really not doing very well but i'm not really ready to talk about it wouldn't that be a more honest answer what would that do for the person who really cares about you well i'll be praying for you now all of a sudden you went from being isolated and being attacked by the enemy with every thought under the sun and you've totally missed the support of what could have happened if you'd have been honest and vulnerable and let the body of christ minister to the body of christ we've become too embarrassed to share what's really going on lest anybody think we're not spiritual and we look around the church and we say well all these people look like they have it all put together i wish i've said many times i wish we had a meter that people walked under when they came in the door and it measured their spirituality it might change a few things or scare a few people off i'm not sure but they look around they say well look at all these people they've got smiles on their face and they look like they have everything together there's not a trouble in the world nobody knows the trouble i've seen surely these good people wouldn't know what i've been through and nothing could be further from the truth the church must always see itself as an adulum's cave we're got to be gathering in the debtor the discontented the distressed the imperfect that's why you're here because none of us are perfect that's why we name this place rock island family church because we know that in the course of life families biologically break down and people end up with wounded hearts and spirits and they need a family but there's nowhere to turn and so the church becomes the family of god where they can be adopted by a father brought in by spiritual mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who teach them how to walk out life the way a family should function maybe we should call it rock island a dulum's cave because god puts the solitude into families he takes care of the hurting and the displaced and he makes a home for them that was the vision from the very first day we planted this church and it has not changed david's own son jesus is now in our own adolescence cave here in 2020 and he is receiving those who are in debt those who are distressed those who are discontented and making them into a a wonderful band of healing and strength and help for the world and david found solace in the company of others and he was strengthened by not turning inward and withdrawing but connecting and caring may that be true for us the second thing david did that works for for him and for healing when life gets out of control is that he did not become self-absorbed to the exclusion of taking care of his responsibilities when we have difficulty the tendency is to kind of draw inward and we start focusing on our problems and we actually even talked about this in our men's group last wednesday night didn't we the one of the great discussions that we had around the circle that night was when my grandson josh brought up this subject he said one of the things i'm dealing with is just the tendency to over be over introspective and it can become a downward spiral because you're excluding other people from from your life and being self-absorbed when we get self-absorbed when we're going through health situations you start thinking about oh is my knee ever going to work again you know whatever happens you know you want to see my scar you know and just we get self-absorbed it's easy to do that when we're trying to recover we get self-absorbed when we're going through emotional problems or spiritual problems and we look more and more inward as much of our time is focused upon ourselves and that's somewhat understandable in nature when things are going wrong but we need to fight the tendency to be so self-absorbed we need to come out of that and also be concerned with other people we cannot be so self-absorbed that we neglect the rest of the issues of life and what david did is he said i've got some responsibilities here i know i'm being sought to be killed but that's going to happen to my parents too and i'm concerned about them so what is he does what did he do look at verse 3 from there david went to mizpah to in moab which is on the eastern side of the dead sea a caves of adult on the west side of the red sea moab is on the east side of the red sea and david comes to the king of moab and says please let my father and mother stay with you until i know what god will do for me and then he left them there with the king of moab and they stayed with him as long as david was in the stronghold that was a stronghold for david he went to went to moab when stayed there with his family and got them got them settled and what i'm saying here is david for all personal concerns he had for his own safety said my parents are also exposed in this situation in his if his parents remained in bethlehem they are subject to being slaughtered by saul if they had gone with david down to the dueling being old and less agile they couldn't keep up with david on the run they needed a safe place and so david comes out of his own of self-absorption of safety and and his needs and is concerned about providing a haven for his parents he takes care of his responsibilities there's an interesting side note i'm trying not to chase many rabbits but i actually wrote this one down so i don't consider it a rabbit there's an interesting side note as i was studying this out and i don't want to miss it note where david takes his parents where did they go moab does that have any kind of a biblical ring to you sound familiar if you go back four generations earlier to david's great great grandmother and grandfather naomi and elimelech they left bethlehem after a long famine they'd had enough they didn't feel like they could stay in bethlehem anymore they just couldn't trust god for for rain anymore and their food had run out so they left bethlehem and where did they go to moab say naomi whose name means pleasant and beautiful and elimelech whose name meant god is my king they leave their ancestral home and journey to southeast moab to heathen territory because there was food there and they had two sons that went with them the sons of naomi and limelike whose names are milan which means sick one and chilean which means wasting awake not recommended names for your kids elimelech ends up dying after they get there and the two boys do grow up and get married and then both of them die and naomi's left with two daughters-in-law one she tried to send them both away one went back to her family but there was one who remained with her do you remember her name it was ruth the only one good thing that happens to naomi and moab is their daughter-in-law ruth who says wherever you go i will go wherever you lodge i will launch your people will be my people and your god my god and she goes back to bethlehem with naomi naomi gets back to bethlehem and she thinks god is finished with her life she's very disenchanted she says don't call me naomi anymore in fact she changed her name because she's no longer pleasant and she changed her name to mara which means bitter one but had there not been the experience of going down to moab there would have been no ruth and had there been no roof there would have been no marriage to boaz and had there been no marriage between ruth and boaz there would have been no obid and had there been no obid there would have been no jesse and had there been no jesse there would have been no great great grandson named david you never know the purposes of god in what you're going through in this very moment but we have a god who has promised to work all things for good according to his glory and plan and as paul harvey said now you know the rest of the story and we know what god was doing in those days that eliminate and naomi they were wandering down there to moab with their with their sons away from family and friends they didn't see it at the time but in fact they felt abandoned by god so when naomi lost her husband and her sons and came back a widow grieved and bitter she's thinking god has abandoned me and we say that god has made a promise to us that he's going to work all things for our good but he never said that that promise would be necessarily fulfilled in our lifetime read hebrews and you'll read a whole about a whole bunch of people who believed and never saw there are some things that god is working for the good in your life that you may never see but that doesn't mean he isn't going to work it for good so it's understandable why david goes down to moab because he's got moabite blood flowing through his veins and there are distant relatives there and they'll be safe and so he takes time out of his own personal saga to care for his family to take care of responsibilities and i encourage you this morning that when life gets out of control don't neglect the important responsibilities that you have in life don't lay down roll over and die stand up brush yourself off and say what next god he's not done with you yet third thing david did in his time when life was out of control was he kept his heart open to god this one is the biggest one for me and he did it in three ways first by profit by the prophet god when he said to david do not stay in this stronghold while he was in moab with his parents a prophet god came to him and said don't stay here but you need to depart to the land of judah and so david left and went to the forest of herath in verse 5. i'd like to suggest you to today that there were three ways that david kept his heart open to god first through the prophet and second through a priest and third through worship singing the very songs that psalms that he had written and those were the three ways that david kept a vital contact with god and they may not be the particular ways that work specifically for each of us but they were the ways that worked for david first of all prophets you see david didn't have a written word we can't he couldn't just sit down with his bible and say okay god what do you want to say to me today and and get some encouragement from the scriptures he didn't have them he depended upon the living voice of god there was a prophet named gad who comes to him and says you need to leave and get down into the wilderness of judah so he does he let the people whom god had used and who he depended upon for advice and he they gave him entrance he gave them entrance into his life let them speak into him and he heard god's word through them let me just say this we don't always hear god's word directly well for ourselves sometimes we hear it even through someone else in fact i i don't want to there's this one would be a rabbit so i'm not going to chase it long and make a small rabbit okay there's so many times in scripture in the new testament deuteronomy chapter 19 it says that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses jesus restates it again in matthew chapter 18 verse 16 he says a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses and then in verse 20 he says and so where two or three are gathered together there am i in the midst anytime you're faced making some kind of a life-changing decision you need to consult the closest ones to you who invest in your life who believe like you believe and who are trusting the same god you're trusting to help speak into your life and hear god with you he is not the author of confusion when judy and i start praying about something we don't make a decision until we both hear god saying the same thing and then we'll go talk to somebody else who we've asked to pray with us about that situation and when they're start saying the same things that we're both hearing from god we feel pretty confident about moving forward but so many people get isolated and they try to hear god only all by themselves without talking to anybody or even reading the word they have no scripture to back up what they're hearing from god they just haven't a feeling can i tell you how inappropriate and undependable feelings can be and so when you have to make a major decision of any kind seek out counsel seek out those who will pray with you who will believe with you who will hear god with you who will even give you scriptures to help confirm what god is saying to you god's not afraid of your question you can't intimidate him the problem is a lot of times when we start praying we come up with an answer that's not god's it's really our first choice and god may have it god may have a whole different reason for taking you through the struggle that you're going through and you're looking for the easiest way out and so you choose that thinking it's the voice of god when you've missed the very trial that god is calling you to walk through to teach you something about himself that was a good rabbit by the way another way david had of keeping his heart open to god and receiving guidance was through the priest abiathar do you remember that name remember when saul came to kill the house of ahimalak and all those 85 priests and all the men and women and okay one priest escaped guess who it was abiathar guess where he ended up with david why because the depressed the indebted the discontented those who were afraid for their they all gathered around there's like a magnet and david he came to dave and he said i escaped and david said stick with me bud i'll take care of you well now david had his own personal priest to walk along with him he came with all the garb the vest with the ephod and the two stones he kept his heart open to god and received guidance through a priest of ithar the descendant of eli the high priest and in first samuel 23 and verse 2 and 4 and then verses 9 through 12 in four separate occasions david was in doubt about a decision so he went to the priest and he said i need to know from god should i do this or not yes or no how many times have you gone to god and said i need a yes or no almost every time you don't want god to say maybe or i'll think about it you really want a yes or no let me be honest with me this morning i know you you're as human as i am there were times when david's human wisdom had run out and he he couldn't make up his make a decision on his own and he wanted a yes or no decision and the old testament had a way of a priest giving a yes or no decision and the way that that decision was given may shock you in fact it may not even sound very spiritual in exodus 28 and verse 30 describes the high priest having something called the urem and the thummen these were the stones that were carried in the vest which he wore over his heart and these stones that were somehow used in discerning god's will and no one's really quite sure exactly how they were employed but at best guess is this the word urim is the word that means cursed thummin means the shiny so these two stones had faces on them one side of the stone was dull and meant curse and the thumb and thumb them say that fast ten times the thummim face which was shiny and glistening meant blessing or and whenever it came for a time for a king to ask god for god's will on something then they would go to the priest and inquire of the lord like shall i go to battle or not i mean you want a yes or no for that one not a maybe and the priest would take the stones out and in some way he would cast a lot and if both sides came up urim the dull flat side the answer meant no don't go to war if both sides came up thumb him or shiny the answer was yes but if he had one of each it meant do whatever you want god will be with you either way i kind of like that one it's not a very mystical way of knowing god's will is it and yet if we look at acts chapter 1 that's exactly how the church selected the next apostle to take the place of judas remember they cast lots in proverbs 16 33 it says the lot is cast into the lap but the decision is holy from the lord do you not believe that god has the power to flip those stones any way he wants them to land am i suggesting that one of the ways that you get guidance is to flip a coin no i'm not suggesting that but i am saying that there are times when we run out run out of our own ability to humanly rationalize ourselves through a decision and rather than simply casting a lot what david did is he went and he inquired of god he wasn't looking to to roll roll dice or make a decision through that he was going to find out what god thinks and he went through that process of asking the lord what is your will and then letting the circumstance happen through which he would discern god's will he didn't cast a lot without asking god first so in our times when our life is out of control we need to keep coming to the lord and asking for direction on moment by moment basis the third way that david kept his heart open to god was through his psalms through worship all through this experience of wandering he he writes psalms which express his faith to god remember when he was acting like a madman in gath in the evening when he would get into his right mind he began to compose psalm 34 and psalm 56. when he is in the cave of adulum he writes psalm 57 and psalm 142. when he receives the word that doag has murdered all of the priests of adulum he writes psalm 52 and when he's betrayed by the ziphites he writes psalm 54 and here in the wilderness of judah in first samuel 22 5 he writes psalm 63. a song expressing the vital themes of a person who is in a fresh relationship with god he expresses his hunger for god he is remembering pastimes of spiritual victory it wasn't always difficult like this he says i have seen you in the sanctuary lord and i beheld your power in your glory we need to remember that in our down times that we have also had up times too isn't that interesting how we can have so many bad things happen in a day and then one bad thing happens and the whole day is labeled bad just thinking i've seen you in a sanctuary beheld your power in your glory he calls that god's love is more important than life and he continues on in worshiping in song saying with upraised hands i will sing to you i will raise my hands through the watches of the night he's concentrating on god and praying to him in his sleepless times and he has a bedrock confidence that god is going to sustain him in his sleepless times and he has a he closes the psalm by referring to himself as the king even though he hasn't even yet become king he's saying god you will uphold me sometimes all we seem to have is god and is that song we sang this morning is he enough you see you'll never improve upon god and something now god will bring other things into your life to help confirm his goodness to you but i've read too many stories of martyrs who've been alone in a jail cell in a prison cell and god was enough you see enough for what you're going through today one of the things that happens when life is out of control is we can become embittered we might say something like well why is god letting this happen to me dave certainly david could have certainly said that he could have said i didn't ask to be king i didn't ask for samuel to show up and pick me to be king i didn't ask to kill goliath i didn't seek to be saul's son-in-law or one of the chief men of his court god you did all of this you put me there why are you now letting this happen to me why am i running for my life why am i so unfulfilled i've known people and you have to who have had difficult experiences in their life and they took it as a sign that god no longer loved them or cared for them and today they are as bitter and away from god as anyone could possibly be david is at that crossroads that you get into when life gets out of control and the question is am i still going to believe and trust in god when my circumstances are pounding my senses with the idea that god doesn't care about me that's what makes it so special that david in his time kept his relationship with god fresh i want to close this morning with a story great story in 1986 a book was written about the life story of angie hurst aggiehurst the title of the book i actually looked it up on google because i thought i might want to buy this book after i heard about the story i looked it up on google there was one copy available through a private owner for sale for over eighty dollars a paperback book little paperback book the title of the book is called one witness and the byline is one woman one tribe one god one witness aggie is passed on as with the lord now but she was the wife of dr d v hurst who was the president of northwest college in seattle washington aggie aggie's parents were david and severe flood missionaries from the pentecostal church of stockholm sweden they went to africa in the early 1920s they went there as an idealistic young missionary couple and they had a two-year-old boy and they went to the belgian congo which is now known as zaire they were called to the lord by the lord to the bush country and they hacked their way back there and van savaya became very ill running a high fever in and she's now pregnant with little aggie and two villages in a row as they came to them turned them down because of their fever would not let them in the village so they had to move on finally in desperation they made some kind of a hut to live in outside of the village of a tribe up on a hill who said you can enter to the village but you can build a little hut up there and in that feverish condition severe flood gave birth to this little girl who was so tiny and so frail when she was born that nobody really expected her to live and then about 20 days later savaya dies david flood the young missionary in his early 30s was stricken in his relationship with god he said those things i was talking about god how could you let this happen to me i came here to africa to serve you my wife and my boy and i have all fallen sick and now we have this little girl to care for and she's not even here now to care for who who is not expected to live and my wife she's died and not he's just beside himself what's happened god we've not seen any fruit of our efforts in fact the only person that was led to the lord in their entire missionary ministry happened to be a little boy who came from the village at the base of the mountain where they were living and every day he would bring them chickens and some food to sell and severe during the pregnancy of aggie ended up leading this little boy to christ in fact the only person that was led to the lord in their whole ministry was that little boy david flood resolved that he was going to leave africa and go back to sweden he started out passing the little baby from one african wet nurse to another until they finally got to uh another missionary station and still in a remote area the missionary couple that were there said to him david there's no way that this baby will make it with you to the coast you're going to either need to stay here with the baby or leave the baby behind and he said i must go i cannot stay will you take the baby for me in the missionary couple degrees and after david leaves they become ill with fever and they die and the baby winds up in the care of american missionaries arthur burke and his wife to make a long story short 40 years go by david had gone back to sweden he married the sister of his deceased wife he fathered three more sons and a daughter he turned his back on god and became an alcoholic he lived a life that was bitter against god and anyone that tried to talk to him about god he railed on them he wouldn't hear it then his second wife dies and for a long period of time he has a a woman friend who becomes his companion she takes care of him because she loves him deeply aggie had tried over that time to establish connection and finally in her early forties the moment comes she's going to fly to stockholm and for the first time in her life she's going to meet her dad whom she knew was bitter against god and the very day that she was to leave she gets in the mail and how she doesn't even know but she gets in the mail a newspaper from stockholm sweden and in that newspaper is an article and a photograph and a text in swedish from the stockholm pentecostal church telling of a missionary who had been to the heartland of zaire and had taken a picture of one of the early missionary graves that particular picture showed a cross and the name severe flood this is over 40 years it told the story that severe flood had gone there and given birth to a little girl who had been lost track of but her missionary experience she had only brought one person to the lord and that was a little boy but that little boy grew up and led his entire village of 600 people to christ including the chief and armed with that article aggie gets on a plane and arrives in stockholm she arrives at the apartment of her dad and she steps inside and it's all the trappings of someone who's enslaved to alcoholism it was her 73 year old dad unshaven unkept foul smelling and bitter of spirit and suffering the after effects of a stroke they see each other and she says to him dad and he says aggie and they fall into each other's arms aggie had been warned by her step-siblings that not to not to talk to dad about god he can't stand it she said to him dad god loves you and he immediately bristled and started to push her aside then she hauled out that article she said look dad look at this here's a picture of mother's grave and the little boy you remember the little boy dad the one who used to bring you chickens and food that little boy that mommy led to the lord he brought the whole village to christ daddy your life was not in vain he began to sob uncontrollably and in those moments which were among the few months that he had left to live aggie brought him back to faith in christ but for 40 years he lived without god because he believed something that was not true that god was not for him that god was not working in the circumstances of his life and that his life in the life of his children became embittered because he didn't keep his heart close to god i don't judge him this morning but we have before us in the scripture the picture of a man david who could have had a bitter heart toward god because of all that was going on in his life but he chose when he had every reason to be bitter to keep his heart tender and open to god that's not the end of the story but there's more several years later aggies meeting with her after her meeting with her father she and her husband were attending a large conference an international gathering in london england she'd been there for several hours already that day and was getting tired and was considering getting up and leaving but suddenly she felt checked and she stayed and right after that a man was introduced to the pulpit to come and speak it was a black man who happened to be the general superintendent of the country of zaidir of zaire for the assemblies of god and he gave a short report and then he said i thank god today that there are now a hundred and ten thousand believers in assembly of god churches in sahir something went off inside of aggie and she said i must meet him after the service she made her way through thousands of people and she found him she said sir i only have one question for you could you have ever met a young missionary couple by the name of david and savaya flood they were in a mission station and and all i know about it is that they were high on a hill and he replied yes ma'am it was severe flood who led me to jesus christ and she looked amazingly at her and then back at this man who is now the superintendent of churches of over 110 000 believers because one woman spoke the story of my mother's one little convert spiraled through my head and then he asked and who might i ask are you she said i am savaya flood's daughter i was the worn one born on that mountaintop the man looked at me as if i were a ghost suddenly tears began running from his eyes as if they'd been held back for years and years and he embraced me and began swinging with me african-style sobbing from the depths of his soul and he rocked gently back and forth crying more and more as i rocked and cried with him he cried so i've i often wondered whatever happened to that little girl whose mother died for us he stopped and took my face in his hands and he looked deeply into my eyes he said i want to give thanks thank you for letting your mother die so we could live so you may not see it now in your life's circumstance and things may not have worked out the way you thought maybe they would and they're not pleasant or it's difficult and in the midst of that kind of time you can say god has forgotten me god has abandoned me why should i serve him and you can make that decision and you can withdraw into a shell of bitterness and regret or you can say i don't understand god i don't understand but i know that because jesus christ is risen from the dead everything that he says is true and you can say lord jesus you have declared that you will never leave me nor forsake me and you will give me the assurance that you are working for the good in my life lord even if i don't see it in the days that i live i will die trusting that in every event of my life you're going to work for my good and rather than being bitter rather than withdrawing rather than being rebellious i choose to serve you i love you i believe in you i trust you that was david's critical key for staying in tune in the midst of his trials he kept a heart that was close to god let's pray together dear lord i pray for all those right now here even in this room or in our families or in our circle of friends for whom this word today becomes comes as a rescue as a life preserver i pray that they may reach out a hand in and feel your hand gripping theirs and knowing full well that when their grip weakens yours gets stronger i pray for everyone whose life circumstances are out of control decisions have been made for them which they didn't make for themselves and they've been painful and the consequences were not just for 24 hours but permeates their life and they don't go away by just wishing them away they are there they have to deal with them each day lord we confess we need you if we need you in our calm times in our quiet times surely we need you even more now more than ever we find as david wrote you o lord are our hiding place you always fill our heart with songs of deliverance and whenever we are afraid we may trust in you and may the weak say i am strong in the strength of the lord we know lord you are no respecter of persons that if you work so miraculously for aggie hurst and if you work so incredibly for david you will work for us too we trust you for that help us in every life circumstance to keep our hearts open to you and cleaving to you help us to keep coming back from our mistakes and our failures to keep coming back to your side saying no matter what lord i'm going to stand with you i'm going to be upheld by you knowing as job did in chapter 4 of job he says success is standing one more time then falling may we find ourselves always standing up putting our shoulders back raising our hands to heaven and say god you are the strength of my life in my portion forever help us in every circumstance lord to remember that we seek this lord jesus in your name through jesus christ our lord i pray amen