It’s Easy to Get in and Hard to Get Out

Chapters 21 and 22 of 1 Samuel

Introduction. It’s easy to get into the wrong relationships, and hard to get out. It’s easy to adopt people, but hard to break free from those who have deceived and used me. It’s easy to run, to cut people off, to manipulate to get my way, but hard to submit, trust, and receive your grace for my needs.

These two chapters from 1 Samuel illustrate how easy it is to get into bad relationships/partnerships, and how hard it is to get out of them. These chapters are the sad record of what happens when a person is driven by fear and not led by faith. The episodes from David’s life told here demonstrate how easy it is to get involved with the wrong people when our decisions are fear based, and how hard to is to be set free if we don’t tell the truth and trust God.

Relationships that are not ordained by God can entangle and distract us from the purposes and plans of God for our life. Sadly, David got involved with men who were disqualified and evil, and in the end, it cost one of the men his life and David his dignity and self-respect. David actually ended up pretending to be insane to save himself.

Excerpts From This Passage:

“So David got away and escaped to the Cave of Adullam. When his brothers and others associated with his family heard where he was, they came down and joined him.

Not only that, but all who were down on their luck came around — losers and vagrants and misfits of all sorts. Over time David became their leader. There were about four hundred in all.” 1 Samuel 22:1-2

Lessons For Prayer and Personal Application.

David ran for his life from Saul. Though it seemed like the only course of action David could take, God “always makes a way.” Though it was probably right for David to leave Jerusalem, that does not mean he had to go to the people he went to for help and in the spirit of panic and fear that gripped him.

Who did David turn to when he fled from Saul? We learn three crucial life lessons from David’s life by the men and the places he turned for help:

• Ahimilech the priest. David was hungry, had men to feed, and was alone. There is nothing wrong with going to a spiritual leader for help, but it must be the right leader. Many an ungodly alliance has been formed in times of distress. Wouldn’t it be better to go to the person God wants us to go to? David turned to a priest named Ahimilech, who was a disqualified priest. God judged his grandfather Eli for his sins and forbade any male descendent from Eli’s family from serving as priests from that time on (see 1 Samuel 2:27-36). David lied to Ahimilech. When you act in faith you don’t have to lie or cover up your actions. God was not calling David to seek help from Ahimilech. David turned to Ahimilech because he was alone and afraid, not because Ahimilech was God’s provision for safety and protection.
• Achish the king. Once again on the run, David fled to Gath, and a man named Achish. David had to be desperate to go to Gath as it was the home of Goliath – and he went with Goliath’s sword strapped at his side! It is amazing that David would turn to a foreign king when he could have gone to family members who knew and loved him. The same thing canhappen in our lives as well. People do the dumbest things when they act in fear. They turn away from those who love them and run into the arms of those who are strangers. And not just strangers, but people who can exert power over their lives. Such behavior can always be traced back to one form of fear or another.

Adullam – the cave filled with “losers and misfits of all sorts.” Finally David arrives at the place of destiny God has for him. God’s choice for David was not with the powerful, the spiritual or the wise. It was not a safe place and certainly not a place for preparing future kings. Seeking the “safe place” has become a highly overrated way of dealing with personal pain. Safety is not God’s primary concern for our lives, righteousness is. The pathway to righteousness is often walking into our pain, not running from it.

The cave of Adullam was not a safe place, but it was the place God had chosen for David. Far more healing and growth happens in our lives in the place of service, the place of loving others, and in the place of grace for misfits and losers.

Don’t let fear lead you. Running from those you fear will not solve your problems. Cutting off people to protect yourself is simply giving into the lie that you have to preserve your life to save it. Pain and the desire to avoid pain can actually cause us to miss the gift pain can be to us. That doesn’t mean we subject ourselves to abusive relationships unnecessarily, but it does mean we face our pain, take responsibility for how we respond to it, and look to God to heal us.

Own your own emotions. We must “own” our emotions if we are to be set free from fear and the pain and pride that motivates it. Our feelings don’t belong to anyone else but us. One of the first steps in dealing with broken relationships is to take responsibility for our feelings. Taking this step doesn’t excuse what others may have done to us, but until we “own our feelings” and take responsibility for how we respond when we are hurt, we will be a prisoner of our pain, and fear that others will hurt us again.

Trust God to protect you. David turned to spiritual counselors and powerful rulers, but neither were God’s choice. David was to find his solace in the presence of the Lord as a worshipper who cried out to God from the depths of his being. God grants a special measure of intimacy to those who turn to him in their pain. This gift can be overlooked in the drama of looking inward to our own hearts or outward to the wisdom of others.

Personal Illustration. One of my favorite people is Corrie ten Boom. Tante Corrie, as the Dutch called her, hid Jews in her home during WW II. She was caught by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp for her “crimes.” It was there she endured unbelievable torture and inhumane cruelty. Her father, sister and nephew all died in the camp. Through a “clerical error” Tante Corrie was “accidentally” released from the prison days before everyone else was exterminated.

How does one overcome the horrors of a concentration camp? Or from watching your own sister beat to death? Or fellow prisoners starved to the point of becoming ghostly skeletons? For Tante Corrie it was not a matter of gritting her teeth and deciding to survive. Nor was she to deny the seering pain and degradation she had endured. It was the grace of God that brought her through. That and forgiving her enemies. After she was released from the Nazi camp, Tante Corrie traveled the world for nearly fifty years sharing a message of grace and forgiveness. It worked for her, and it will work for you.

Tante Corrie befriended Sally and me when we moved to Holland in 1973. Tante Corrie invited us to stay with her in her home, and in turn, she visited us on the two house boats that served as a half-way house in Amsterdam. She reminded the young people in our community about the power of forgiveness. Though many of them came from broken homes, and in some cases had suffered at the hands of their parents, none had gone through what Tante Corrie had endured. In a special way, they identified with the little Dutch “tante” who wore long, old fashioned dresses and a bun on her head. She had suffered, She spoke from the heart. And she always brought a message of forgiveness and the enabling grace of God to set us free from any problem.

If you are in pain, if you are experiencing agonizing rejection, if you cannot escape from the memories of abuse or rejection, I urge you right now to turn to Jesus. IF you are tempted to run from your past, or from people who have hurt you, let the Father be your comfort and protection. Forgive and receive from God his powerful healing grace. He will comfort you and restore you. No demon in hell, no human on earth, no ruler, no leader and no force of nature can keep you from the love of God All you have to do is simply cry out to him in your need. He is there for you.

Prayer of Response Please pray these words with me, would you?.

Dear Father… dear loving, ever present Father, would you please heal my heart and set me free? Please Lord, take away the sting of the pain I feel, the pain of rejection, of abandonment, of missed years and broken promises. I need you Lord. I accept those you have put in my life to lead me and counsel me, but I look to you as the source of all I need.

I forgive those who have hurt me. I forgive them now, and I will keep on forgiving them every time I think of them or feel the pain of what they did to me.

I forgive them because you have forgiven me. I forgive them because you died on the cross to set me free from fear and pain.

Lord, I choose by your grace not to get into entangling relationships that are not of you. I choose through your grace to run from sin and all the false temporary pleasures of sin. You are my pleasure! You are my comfort. You are my healing and strength.

I choose to break the pattern of running when I am afraid. I ask you to give me faith to stay, faith to face my past and my pain, faith to work it through. I know running, bolting, taking off when I feel trapped or closed in is not the answer. I believe you are the answer. I run to you, Father, into your arms. Please help me to face my fears and hurts, and to be healed and set free by your love.

In Jesus name, Amen.