Welcome to episode 26.
Today, we're going to take on a posture of peace
by strengthening ourselves in the Lord.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.
Posture is a podcast that serves as a short, audible fist bump
to remind you that God is in everything.
Together, we're going to be emboldened to take
a daily posture of perfect peace.
You know, for so many of us, life has radically shifted right now
with the global health crisis of the coronavirus.
And so many of us are just trying to be strong throughout it all.
And some of us have gotten to a place where we may be asking,
how is it even humanly possible to be strong in the middle of this crisis?
It may not be humanly possible today for you to be strong,
but it is supernaturally possible.
That is good news.
You and I are not required to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps
and try to be strong today.
Instead, we have been invited into a relationship with strength himself.
And that's what we're going to be talking about today.
I'm going to be reading from a story out of 1 Samuel 30.
As always, I encourage you to read the story in its entirety.
I'm just going to be pulling out a few portions for us today.
So in verse 6, it says,
And David was greatly distressed.
Can you relate?
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.
Quick backstory.
David and his men returned from the war front
to find the city that they left behind destroyed
and all of their families taken captive.
So understandably, they all lost it.
It says in verse 4,
that they all wept and raised their voices
until they no longer had the strength to weep.
I just want to point out,
these were mighty warriors, okay?
And they were in such a place of grief
that they wept until they no longer had strength to even weep.
And in this place, David finds himself
not only facing his own tremendous loss of his city
being destroyed and his family being taken,
but he's also facing potential betrayal
because his men are looking to him as a leader
and they're blaming him for what has happened.
And it's in that place
that David decides to strengthen himself in the Lord.
And it says in verse 8,
that David then inquired of the Lord what to do.
Here's what I find so interesting.
David did not know what to do,
but he knew the Lord.
So he went to the Lord for a solution.
And God says, go, you're going to overtake them
and you're going to rescue them.
And David and his men obey the Lord.
They go, they recover all of their families
and they don't just regain what was lost,
but they also get spoils from the battle that they win.
So they leave with more than what they came for.
I'm left asking two questions.
The first is, what would have happened
if David had not strengthened himself in the Lord?
Like what would have happened to David or his men?
Or what would have happened to the families
that had been taken captive?
And then with that sobering thought in mind,
I'm left asking, well, how did David strengthen himself
in the Lord?
Because I need to know how to do that,
especially now, especially today.
And we find in the book of Psalms,
we get great insight into how David engaged with the Lord,
what their relationship looked like.
And I find this, there's this constant theme
throughout the Psalms.
The Lord had David's focus, his attention, and his affection.
David had a constant posture of total trust in the Lord.
You know, I think about the time that we're living in right now
and the fear that is so widespread.
And I think, what is feeding the fear?
And I know for me, it's been the unknown.
You know, it's all that we don't know about it
that's been feeding this fear
and tempting us into a place of total torment.
It's we don't know how widespread it's going to be. We don't know how long it's going to last.
We don't know what's going to happen to the economy.
We don't know what life will look like when all this is said and done. You know, we don't know what's going to happen to us.
But isn't it interesting that trust isn't really needed when everything is known?
Trust is most authentic in the unknown.
In the Psalms, David is constantly declaring his trust in the Lord through praise and worship and
thanksgiving. And while David most definitely mentions his problems, crises, and losses,
he marvels at who the Lord is for him. Today, let's ask ourselves, who or what has our focus,
our attention, our affection, our emotions? Perhaps we need to reset today and redefine
our focus. Let's today stop fixating on all that we don't know about this crisis and instead place
intense focus on who we know the Lord to be. He is good. He is faithful. You know, we find all
scriptures prove that he is powerful. He's a redeemer. He's a restorer. He loves us. He is
for us. You know, this type of focus reset may require that we unplug from some other sources,
even for just a bit, so that we can reset our focus on the one who is most worthy of our trust.
Let's acknowledge today that the Lord is way more worthy of our trust than our Facebook friends.
The Lord is way more worthy of our trust than our bank account. The Lord is way more worthy
of our trust than the latest news reports. The Lord is way more worthy of our affection and our
attention than the disappointments of all that has been canceled, postponed, lost, or stolen
because of this coronavirus. Let's be quick to strengthen ourselves in the Lord today by placing
a total trust in him. We mentioned in the last episode 25, God has never lost a battle. Let that
thought, that truth, have your full focus today. The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26 3,
and in Hebrew it is shalom shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken.
This is who you are in Jesus. Let's declare this together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace.
With my whole heart, I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember friend,
you are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of
what he did for you. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display
and Satan's defeat on replay.
you