Zoe Dallas

Where do you turn in times of difficulty? How can we find peace in the midst of chaos? This chapter describes a stressful time in the lives of David and his friends, and it teaches us to trust not in our own wisdom and plans, but in the God who is in control.

Personal relationships can be the source of our most difficult trials. Although David experiences evils at the hands and the plans of others, he continually entrusts himself to the hand and the plan of God, who is for us and is stronger than anyone who could be against us.

What makes a church a church? Everything we believe, profess, and practice together is founded on the unity that God has called us to as his people.

When we experience the fire of pain and trials, though it may burn and hurt us, it also refines us. Pain is a God-given opportunity to draw closer to Him in trust and in faith.

In this world, deceivers abound who desire to draw away the hearts of the Lord's followers. In studying Absalom's character, we learn how to recognize such people and how to avoid the snare of following after the wrong king.

Walking worthy means balancing the reality of who we are in Christ with the way we live our lives. Namely, our spiritual maturity is evident in how we pursue unity with one another, holding each other up to greater faith.

David, the man after God's own heart, was not perfect. His personal failures, familial failures, and now his kingly failures put on clear display the both sinfulness of man and our need for a true King.

We are all sinners living in a world of sinners. When we are inevitably sinned against, what is our response? Do we justify our anger and bitterness, or do we understand that we may be responding sinfully ourselves, and giving an opportunity to Satan?

While we may be rightly horrified at the sin of David's eldest son Amnon, we also must turn our gaze within and be appalled at the sickness within our own hearts. The only source of our hope and redemption is the true love of the perfect Heavenly Father.

Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church reminds us that it is vital in our own lives that we seek the nearness of Christ, know the immensity of Christ's love, and desire the abundance of God himself in us.