The Cave Experience

Day two hundred forty-five

Today I am loving my family.  I am so grateful for the Spirit in my home and for the strong bond that I share with each of the men in my life.  Living with three men is not always easy, but I feel so much love from each of them that it is totally worth the challenges!  So this morning I thanked the Lord for blessing my life with such funny, loving, random, crazy guys and I asked Him to watch over and bless them.  Life would not be the same without my boys!

1 Samuel 22

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by life?  We all do from time to time!  This chapter finds David in one of those times.  David has been brought to the absolute bottom of life.  He is hurting, he is broken and he is defeated. He is in a dark, damp, dreary, depressing cave.  He has experienced the loss of every thing and every one he leaned on in his life.  He is alone, defeated and discouraged.  The Crown Prince of Israel is living in a cave (v 1)!

I have had the "cave experience" in my life.  It is uncomfortable, painful and lonely! We have two choice while we are living through a "cave experience":  we can crumple under the load and fall apart and sink down into the pit of self-pity or we can rise to the challenge and tap into a source of strength that we didn't know we possessed. 

I have been guilty of wallowing in self-pity, but the Lord doesn't let me wallow too long before He helps me put the pieces back together.  He knows exactly what I need to get me to climb out of my cave.  And when I do, my relationship with Him is always a little stronger. 

Caves make for hard living, but they are not altogether bad!  There are some refreshing discoveries to be made in the caves of life.

Family (v 1) – David’s family comes to him in that cave.  It is in the difficult times that families learn to pull together.  We learn to count on each other for the help we need and we learn to put our differences aside for the benefit of the whole.  It seems that the caves of live have the potential to bring out our best and the best in our family members as well.

Friends (v 2) -  The men who gathered themselves around David were there because they were fed up with Saul.  Do you think David could relate to that? The distressed came to David.  This word means “to be under stress and under pressure.”   We are also told that those who were in debt came.  This speaks of those who “could not pay their bills.”  The discontented also came.  This word refers to those who are “bitter and who have been mistreated.”  Here was a group of hundreds of people who have suffered under the tyranny and taxation of Saul and they are fed up.  They go to David as strangers, but soon they will become an army, a team, who will depend on each other for their very survival. 

I am not sure that David could see in his life what they saw.  At the time, David was facing feelings of defeat and discouragement.  While David could only see the cave; those who came to him could see the crown.  They gathered themselves around him and believed in him, even when he was down! 

The Lord has a way of surrounding us with those we need to give us support.  Thank the Lord for the encouragers of life!  How grateful we should be for those people who can see potential in our lives, when we can see nothing good in ourselves! 

Focus (vv 3-5, 22-23) – Going through the pain of seeing his support system taken away was a difficult experience for David.  Having to flee from the palace to hide in a cave was humbling as well.  However, in that humble hide away, God began the process of transforming David into a great king.  God took that rag tag band of men and, working through David, transformed them into “David’s Mighty Men.”  These men, and their exploits, are named in 2 Sam. 23. 

Because God sent these men to David in that cave, David was able to get his mind off of his problems and focus his attention on leading them and training them to be a fighting force.  It was a humble beginning, but David was focused and soon he would walk out of that cave and accept the crown.

If there is any one benefit of the cave that stands out, it is the fact that caves have the ability to focus our priorities.  When we go into a "cave experience", we soon learn what is important and what is trivial.  The caves help us focus like nothing else!

David entered his cave a broken and defeated man.  He emerged as the captain of an army of might men.  The cave refined David’s life and helped to prepare him for the tasks that lay ahead.  He grew in that cave because he submitted to the cave.

This is a great lesson for me.  I tend to want to fight my way through the difficult times instead of submitting to the Lord and letting Him teach me.  I think about David's transformation and wonder what I have missed out on because I didn't take full advantage of the "cave experience".   How much more refined could I be if I would get out of the way and let the Lord work on me?  How much more gratitude would I express if I truly understood what He was doing for me? 

I am once again impressed by the teaching power of the Spirit, I will never look at a "cave experience" without seeing the Lord's love for me in it!