God’s advice to David in 1 Samuel 30 was to pursue the Amalekites, overtake them and recover all that had been lost, which is what happened: ‘David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. ¹⁹ Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.’ (1 Sam 30:18-19) This is a picture for us of all that Christ has done for us on the cross.

Before we knew Christ, we were estranged from God, ‘dead in your transgressions and sin.’ (Eph 2:1) We were ‘by nature deserving of wrath.’ (Eph 2:3) The intimacy Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden had been forfeited by their disobedience and the future was bleak. But in Christ we are now, as a result of God’s grace and love, reconciled to God and counted as His children, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. (2 Cor 5:20-21, Romans 8:14-16) All that was stolen from us by the devil’s schemes and our disobedience has been returned to us. We now have a glorious future and can live our lives on earth to please God and to fulfil His plans for our lives.

The story of how David dealt with victory over the Amalekites (1 Sam 30) has much to teach us about the way God works and therefore the way we too should live. David’s army of 600 men set off in pursuit of the Amalekites on God’s orders, but 200 of them were too exhausted to continue and stopped at the Besor Valley, becoming baggage handlers, in effect (as one whose role in theme parks is as the ‘bag lady’, I have some sympathy with these men!) Unsurprisingly, when the 400 men returned victorious – with extra spoils from war above and beyond their own wives and children – they were reluctant to share with these men, whom they saw as having had no part to play in their victory.

We can understand their reasoning, but it was based on worldly thinking and false assumptions (namely, that the victory was all down to their cleverness, instead of acknowledging God’s help in all that had happened.) David was insistent that there should be equality in dividing the spoils, and even went so far as to give some of the spoils of war to other towns in Judah. David acted with generosity and kindness, compassion and mercy, understanding that teamwork matters and that all of us have different roles to play at different times. There is no room for a competitive spirit or meanness in how we deal with each other; the Bible is clear that this view came from ‘evil men and troublemakers.’ (1 Sam 30:22) God’s thoughts and ways are far higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9), and when we have received grace and mercy from God, we will want to deal with grace and mercy too. Knowing God affects every area of our lives and how we live towards others.

1 Samuel 30 tells us the story of David’s recovery of all that had been stolen from him in Ziklag by the Amalekites. The situation was dire: not only did he and his men return from the Philistines having been rejected by them and deemed untrustworthy only to find their wives and children abducted by enemies, but his own men, in despair, even talked of stoning David. In his distress, he found strength in God and was encouraged by God to pursue the Amalekites to recover all that had been stolen from him. (1 Sam 30:1-7)

On the way, they met an Egyptian, a man abandoned by the Amalekites, who had not eaten or drunk for three days and nights. (1 Sam 30:11-12) Remembering his ‘desert hospitality’ and showing kindness and compassion to this man, David found that this apparently coincidental meeting was actually God’s providence, the means to finding the Amalekites and the way to victory. Who could have thought that an act of mercy could bring such rewards? Who could have imagined that God would work in such a way?

Our lives are testimonies to these many ‘coincidences’ which are actually signs of God’s providence. Chance meetings, random circumstances and unexpected meetings are often the way God chooses to direct our paths. David could have been too intent on pursuit to pause and help a stranger. By showing kindness and mercy, he was to find God had already gone ahead of him and answered his prayers. Let’s never be too busy to pause and show kindness to others. As Jesus said, it’s when we invite the strangers in, give food and drink to those in need and visit those in prison that we are actually serving Jesus Himself. (Matt 25:31-46)