To be strengthened in God does not mean to receive food or money or weapons from above, but words of God’s promise.…David remembers and meditates on the words of God till his soul finds fresh courage in them.

David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
(1 Samuel 30:6)

David was not the first great man in Israel to be threatened with stoning. Nor would he be the last.

This was almost a rite of passage for daring leaders in a landscape littered with chunks of rock. Even the great Moses, meekest man on earth, had found himself on the cusp of being stoned (Exodus 17:4; Numbers 14:10). And a thousand years after David, when his greater son would appear, we read even of Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, “The Jews picked up stones again to stone him” (John 10:31–33; 11:8).

Although David still evades the violence of Saul, he now feels the panic of his men who blame him for leaving their families vulnerable to an Amalekite raid. David is “greatly distressed,” as we might expect. But then we hear where the future king turns in such dire straits: he “strengthened himself in the Lord his God.”

How did David “strengthen himself in God”? The immediate context doesn’t tell us much. We learn what David does with the fresh strength he finds: he inquires of God and pursues the enemies who have sacked the city and carried off the women and children (1 Samuel 30:7–9).

But how David “strengthens himself in God” goes unsaid. A hint is offered just a few chapters prior.

Asking for a Friend

In 1 Samuel 23, David’s life is under threat, and he knows it. Saul has come out to the wilderness, where David is hiding, to seek David’s life. The threat has left David discouraged and uncertain, feeling vulnerable and weak.

Yet the God who has anointed David to be Israel’s next king will sustain him even through this storm. Not only does God keep Saul and his men from finding David, but God also sends an instrument of his grace to strengthen David’s heart—Jonathan, Saul’s own son and David’s dear friend:

Jonathan, Saul’s son, rose and went to David at Horesh, and strengthened his hand in God.

Oh, for friends like Jonathan! How we need brothers and sisters who rise from their places of comfort and seek us out in the wilderness, in an hour of need and uncertainty and fear, that they might strengthen our hand in God.

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