how i found God's love on the bleak road

intent --> relating David being cast out of the palace when he knows he is to be crowned king to our situation in sports. that God’s love for me is not dependent on any amount of success i have. that on this bleak road is where he shows us that he is our defense, he is our promoter, he is where we place our dependence.

God’s love for you is not dependent on your success. read that again. God’s love for you is not dependent on your success. how many of you actually believe that to be true – not how many of you know this to be true but do you actually believe it to be true? you see, i had always known that to be true! i did.

i knew that God loved me unconditionally, (Jeremiah 31:3)

i knew that God promises to never leave me nor forsake me, (Deuteronomy 31:8)

i knew that God wants what is best for me, (Romans 8:28)

but when trouble came, when my faith was tested, yes i knew these things but i didn’t believe them to be true. i didn’t trust them to be true. because you see this last baseball season when nothing was going right, when it felt like forever since i had any success, when it was bad outing after bad outing and i was praying for God to turn this season around. praying for God to help me in my career. praying that God would show up some way some how. and nothing ever changed, it kept going downhill and eventually i had enough. i felt i had prayed enough, endured enough, kept a good attitude long enough that surely, he would come to my rescue. all seemed quiet though, and since i hadn’t heard anything from Him it was hard for me to want to commit any of my time to this relationship that i felt i was getting nothing back in. i finished out the season barely ever reading my Bible, hardly praying, i had a very slim relationship with God for the last couple months of my season. i felt like He didn’t care about what i was going through. i couldn’t figure out why He wanted to drag me through the mud. i couldn’t figure out what He was wanting to teach me in the silence, and i took his silence as absence.

it wasn’t until i went to this conference during the off-season and heard Matt Chandler

speak that i believed God’s love for me is not dependent on my success in my sport, that i believed His silence is not absence. he was talking about Psalm 139 where it says, ‘in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them’. and he expanded on the verse saying, ‘i was made for this day and this day was made for me’. it finally clicked. no matter what this day has in store for me God created it for me and i’m going to find out why. i trust and believe that He loves me unconditionally, i trust and believe His promise to never leave nor forsake me, i trust and believe God wants what is best for me. my mindset has shifted after a bad game from ‘heeelllooo God are you there? you just hung me out to dry today. do you even love me? why did it have to go like this? where are you?’ to ‘this day was made for me. what is my purpose, what are you trying to teach me? help me to see You in these moments’ but now instead of those questions being asked with deaf ears in response i await His answer

because i know He will show me – for He loves and cares for me.

all of us at some point in our lives have had ‘a bleak road ahead’ that we have had to walk. a bleak road will look different for all of us, but what it means is that you are having to walk down a road that is seemingly depressing. a road that does not look like you will find much hope or encouragement on. a road that does not look like the path you would choose for yourself. as i am reading the book of 1 Samuel i am inspired by the story of David, inspired by the way God shows up and the lessons He will teach us along the way. He will show up, He will show you the purpose of the path.

you see, David had a bleak road lying in front of him that he had to walk. a much more

bleak road than a bad season, or some bad games. for David the bleak road he had to walk was going from anointed king to outcast. when David was around 15 or so, Samuel had anointed David upon God’s calling for a new king to rise is in Israel. a new king that was ‘a man after God’s own heart’. but what David probably didn’t know is that it would take about another 15 years or so for him to take the throne, and for some period of time during those 15 years David was on the run from king Saul because he was trying to kill him! David had become an outcast, on the run from Saul, when he had once been a champion and hero for all Israel. but this is all part of God’s plan for David. as is His plan for us. you see,

God wanted to take David away to prepare Him for the role he was about to step into. He wanted David to depend on Him. He wanted David to learn that He and He alone would be David’s defense, and David’s promoter – not himself. He wanted David to learn to submit to His authority before stepping into a role of authority. the bleak road is important.

the bleak road is not something that is comfortable, but when is growing ever comfortable? take confidence in knowing that if it seems like you are on this walk with whatever you are going through that God is wanting to grow you. our position is not a scale that shows God’s love for us! i have been positioned in great seats for seasons of my life when my relationship with God wasn’t a priority, and that is the enemy tempting to show you that you don’t need Jesus. that you can do it all by yourself. when really God wants to use these ‘bleak roads’ that lie ahead for the same reasons He took David on them and so many countless others. He wants to grow you and groom you for the blessings He has waiting for you at the end of the bleak road that you can't see yet. He is preparing you for what He has set apart for you!

your circumstances are not a gauge for how much God loves you - what i mean by this is that when things are going great it doesn't necessarily that God's love is overflowing for you and when things aren't looking so hot it's because God doesn't love you. i have always tied my worth, and my love to how i perfrom in baseball and that has always put a very serious strain and seasons of ups and downs in my walk with Jesus. i am here to tell you, your worth is not tied to your successes or failures. these are the lies of the enemy, because he knows that when you walk down the bleak road with Jesus you come out with a stronger, more assured faith.

your path has a purpose and it's not for punishment.

your road has a reason and it's not for wrath.

God loves you wildly more than you could ever comprehend.

-n0tbychance