Stress
I don’t know if you noticed, but in both of these instances, the stress was alleviated when Jacob and David turned away from the circumstances and toward God. The stress of their situation was great; like Saul, they could have allowed it to magnify their problems until they did wrong, but instead, they both turned to the Lord, and God delivered them from their problem. Instead of magnifying the problems, the stress was used to enlarge them, and both Jacob and David went on to become great for God, and these times of stress were a significant proving time for them in that. For just a minute, consider all the verses that tell us that this is a right response to stress.
“In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.”
2 Samuel 22:7
“The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.”
Psalm 25:17
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:6
“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:13
“Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:19
“Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.”
Psalm 107:28
“I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.”
Psalm 118:5
“A Song of degrees. In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.”
Psalm 120:1
I hope you get the point that the desire of God is that when you face stress in your life, you would turn to Him. He wants to enlarge you, but if you don’t turn to Him, you will turn that magnifying glass on your problems and enlarge them to the place that you make bad decisions and hurt yourself. In our text passage, we see the process that God desires for us to use to deal with stress very clearly.
Notice that in David’s distress he called upon God, clearly asking God to hear his prayer in verse one. We have firmly established that this is the right response. What, though, are we to do in prayer? I’m sure that you, like me, have prayed about something that was stressing you out and didn’t seem to get much relief. I never experienced relief because I was still focused on the issue rather than on God until I saw this passage in this light.
