Do you personally resonate with this statement or feel this way about a person you know or love? 

“Lord, I’ve done my best to serve You, denied myself, been faithful in prayers, love my neighbours as much and forgave my enemies but I am in a bottomless pit of pain and problems. Through all this, you have not answered my countless prayers. Wasn’t I better off before I came closer to You…….Lord what wrong did I do to be treated like this?!!!”

Even St. Teresa of Ávila in frustration commented to Jesus, when she fell off her wagon during a journey, “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!”

When God permits these delays in life, coupled with added problems piling on and remaining dead silent in all this, we may go through a head banging test of endurance, feeling as if our nerves are tearing apart. 

David the shepherd had gone through worse experiences. His story of pain and rejection (though God deeply loved and glorified him) was famously known throughout history and through it, we will open our unbelieving eyes to God’s own testament about Himself: 

“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9

The book of the Psalms was written by David and besides other things (these extracts), narrate the severe rejection and setbacks he faced which were sorrowfully expressed in his personal cries to God.

Psalm 69:8 “I am a stranger to my own family, a foreigner to my own mother’s children.”

Psalm 27:10 “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.”

The young boy David appeared to be shunned by his father and brothers; the proof was when Samuel wanted to anoint the next king, David’s father, Jesse, did not seem to even consider David as his son. It was Samuel who was prompted by God to literally “search out” for David and ask, after which, Jesse called for David.

And where was David? It seemed like David was all the time away from the family’s attention, as if exiled, in the pastures (for shepherding was also considered a lowly job). It may have well been that David was very much at discomfort at home. His family also knew that in the pastures, he was dangerously left to face lions and bears to defend his sheep!

From his childhood, he was rejected by his brothers and was uncared for by his parents, as we see above in Psalm 69:8, Psalm 27:10 and 1 Samuel 17:28.

1 Samuel 17:28: “When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, ‘Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.'”

David could have been greatly defeated by this and he must have been awfully frightened of his elder brothers, but with faith he did the extraordinary. In his loneliness, wanting desperately to cling to a parent and with a strong conviction, he wholeheartedly believed that God was his father: 

Psalm 68:5: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His Holy dwelling.”

Psalm 25:16: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.”

Since he embraced the unseen God as his father, the Spirit of God took hold of him and unflinchingly taught him to have confidence and fearlessness to believe that: 

Psalm 27:2-3, “When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war may rise against me, in this I will be confident.”

God’s Spirit literally drove David to find refuge in the fields, away from the stress of home. He loved God’s creation; innocent and vulnerable lambs and David longed to protect them because he himself must have felt unprotected. The Spirit of God taught him to be fiercely protective such as to give him the courage to defend them to the point of fighting off lions and bears.

These were God’s first acts of greatness, it was the first typology to his future as the king of the people (flock) of Israel, the faithful shepherd, willing to give up his life for them.

It was a time of isolation; a desert/exile experience most of us shirk from and dread. There was one thing David never did, which most struggle with (including those in the desert with Moses), which was to blame or hate God for this. He did not fault God for not having what should have naturally been his – a loving family and safety, inspite of being a good son. 

Instead, he wrapped His arms around God and declared, “You are now my Father!” And in response, God looked at his son and prophetically spoke through David’s own Psalms 91:14-15 saying:

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

Thereafter, God’s heart acted as though He had declared these words over David: 

Because you take Me, the Most High as your refuge rather than blame Me – you show your belief in Me, I am well pleased with you and will make you unbelievably great – starting from these pastures itself! I will use this time to teach you something no one else in Israel knows, on protection! 

In stark difference to Saul or his soldiers who fight with strength and power, I will teach you unparalleled marksmanship, whereby you will not need anything else – not even an armor! Rather, you will learn the art of prefect protection to the core for yourself and even others – and by this even your broken heart will be restored to feel protected by My embracing Fatherly care and love for you.

Before you were born, I knew you, I have always loved you and as I am a Father, I wanted someone to experience my Fatherly love. As I knew you would be forgotten by your mother and father, long ago I adopted you from Jesse, because I long to be the loving Father that I am to you.

During his years of exile, David unknowingly learned lessons that would prepare him for greater things. In fact those pastures (away from his family) were God’s choicest of places – literally the womb of God’s love, a place where milk and honey and the choicest vegetation grew, with God’s own purity reflected in innocent lambs, whose vulnerability mirrored David’s own – it was Divine and stress free!

My people often think, that I cause their suffering and feel tempted to believe that I am cruel or indifferent when they face hardships. How can I as a Father have a divided heart and enjoy your pain??

With David, I worked to undo and heal him of all the negativity he experienced. I did not desire he feel the pain of rejection or the fear of being unloved, but the evil influenced reality of rejection was around him, but in drawing closer to Me, I let him find himself relying on me as a real Father, where others failed. 

In David’s case, I took him away from the people who pushed him aside and gave him a sanctuary of peace, replacing his fears with strenght – not just physically but emotionally. He tasted freedom when he stopped looking for love and protection from his earthly family but turned to Me and I finally put him in a place of power. I wanted what he wanted, but gave it to him differently; in an unparalleled lasting way, such that no one could snatch that security out of his hands.

I was teaching David to charge forward in faith – but how do you do that?

You have to:

1. Shut down your senses 
2. Shut down your human logical mind that is telling you things about the now- but cannot see the future.
3. Seek refuge in My womb of quietness and calmness or call upon the Spirit of peace.
4. Pursue by locking into My futuristic plan – which plan? My promises of hope and at times the vague vision (prophecy) I have already given you.
5. Expand your belief of Me being a loving Father, so that you soon find yourself reaping the harvest.

Remember, even our five human senses and logical mind, with all the information it has brought in of the recent past and what it processed, cannot show us the blueprint of the path and success that God has planned for our future. 

Remember that when we are in the pit of seeming despair and instead of our prayers raising us out of it, we feel God dropping us one step lower and we are screaming in pain, these disasters are not ordinary sufferings as part of life’s random hardships. They are divine appointments — purposeful trials allowed by God as a part of His greater plan to refine and exalt us for a glorious destiny. Neither are they punishments but stepping stones towards the fulfillment of a higher calling. 

So when we move from seeming disaster to disaster – in God’s eyes- we are actually passing one great exam after the other! As these are spiritual exams, they feel awful to the flesh. 

Isaiah 43:2 – “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

Joseph was a classic example:

1. Joseph was betrayed and nearly killed by his brothers and sold:

This first disaster was God’s spiritual exam – a typology for the future. What was it? The first lesson as a Ruler (chosen by God) – detachment from man and attachment to God and His Spirit to rule under God.

2. Taken as a slave to work at Potiphar’s household: 

Though at first it seemed daunting, the Spirit of God was with Joseph and he managed not just the house of a rich Egyptian man – but a royal one! God was preparing him to learn the Egyptian culture, understand houses of royalty and rule not only alongside Pharaoh but over the very Egyptians of that land.

3. Rape accusation: 

What was a disaster for man was the next holy step that he passed. God refined Joseph as His chosen PM, in teaching him to respect unto death, and abide by all of God’s ways and laws as a ruler – one such being immorality. Unlike Ruben, Joseph’s brother who slept with his father’s concubine and shamed his father, Joseph so resisted Potiphar’s wife, that he even ran away naked, shaming himself rather than hurting God and his master Potiphar. This shame was ratified even more by being sent to prison.

4. Imprisonment:

The last seeming disaster yet final test from God was detachment from power and position (management) to accepting with humility two years of quiet time – but in that time God was honing the gift of prophesy in Joseph. Joseph had a lot of free time and most probably spent it in prayer growing in the Spirit, as we see his correct interpretation of two dreams, his tenderness towards the prisoners. Why was this important? In order to be a great ruler, he had to be something like a priest, prophet and king. Which means, rule like a king, abide God’s ways like a priest and help administer that to others and finally hear from God for personal guidance on custom matters. 

God is our loving Father, but it is hard to understand His language of love. It is not flowery, it is not too wordy or offering consolations (unlike what humans do), nor provides understanding of the situation – but uncomfortably silent and sometimes it even spells outright insecurity (but only for a while), He is Spirit and unseen, He will bless you with peace in the meadows while we look for beds of bliss. 

The way He heals, equips and empowers as a Father in the journey of these “disasters” – making us emerge as rock solid, showing us that what we are reminded of in the very beginning of this message: 

“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” Isaiah 55:9 

So as the child David did exercise faith, we need to do the same. 

Faith, is a pair of eyes that have futuristic vision, based on confidence in God’s promise, love and hope. When the eyes of Faith open, all the five human senses and logical brain have to bow down before it and be quieted or numb.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

May 2025 be a year of faith to believe all things that happen to us are a beautiful Divine plan, by magnifying our understanding of God being the Ultimate Father of Love.