Trust God’s Timing (1 Samuel 27:7)

And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.
– 1 Samuel 27:7

This is one of those places in the Bible where time is not represented well by the amount of time it takes for us to read something. I think about Genesis, the story of Joseph and the 12 years that he spends in prison. And it takes a couple of verses to go through those 12 years, just like turning a page. We don’t really feel the weight of 12 years of waiting in prison. The same is true here in 1 Samuel 27:7. I read this, and I hear that the number of days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.

1 Samuel 27:7 teaches us to trust God’s faithfulness in long seasons of waiting.

Here, he is fleeing from Saul at many points, days, afraid for his life. And it wasn’t just a day or a week or a month. But it was month after month after month for a year and four months. This just makes me think about my struggles with waiting. And I’m guessing you have the same struggles. We long for resolution to so many different things in our lives, our families, work, the church, and the world. It’s hard to wait for any amount of time and particularly for a long amount of time.

And I just want to encourage you today based on this verse in 1 Samuel 27:7. And specifically based on God’s faithfulness to David every single one of these days over the course of this year and four months. In the same way that God was faithful to every single one of those days and months and years for Joseph. You can trust God. I can trust God in the waiting.

And I want to lead us to pray for patience in the waiting, which is hard for all of us. And think about why it’s hard, because we don’t see all that God is doing. We don’t understand all that God is doing. But this is the life of faith. It’s trusting that God is working in the waiting in millions of ways that we cannot see.

1 Samuel 27:7 shows how God is always at work, even when we don’t see it.

One of my favorite quotes from John Piper is when he says that God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them. So we pray. God, we trust that you are all-knowing, you are all loving, you are all powerful, and you are all wise. And we trust that in our waiting, you are always working. And you are working in thousands of ways in our lives, through our lives, around our lives right now in ways that we don’t see.

So God, we pray for patience in the waiting. We pray for strength in the waiting. God, we pray for peace in the waiting to guard us from anxiety and worry and fear. We pray that your love in our waiting would cast out all fear. God, we pray for hope in the waiting. We pray for patient, restful trust in you.

I think about how that word in the Old Testament to wait on the Lord literally means to rest trustfully in the Lord. God help us to rest trustfully in you as we confess, God, we are tired, we’re exhausted. We are longing for resolution. We’re longing for healing. We’re longing for help in so many different ways in this fallen world in each of our lives. And at the same time, we praise you. You are familiar with every single detail and every single circumstance we are facing. And you are infinitely trustworthy. We can indeed rest trustfully in you. So we pray for your help in every way we need in the waiting.

And God, we pray for people who are waiting to hear the good news of how worthy you are and how loving you are and how gracious and merciful you are and how you’re working for their good in Jesus.

Prayer for the Hausa People

God, we pray today for the Hausa people all across West Africa, for 56-plus million Hausa Muslim men, women, children who are waiting to hear the gospel. God, please bless even think about friends of mine who are working for the spread of the gospel among the Hausa. Raise up more laborers to spread the gospel to the Hausa that they might wait no more, that they might hear the good news of your love and your grace and your mercy in Jesus in the gospel.

Oh God, we pray for urgency to work to spread the gospel to them as we trust and we wait for you in so many different ways in our lives. We pray all this according to your word in 1 Samuel 27:7. In Jesus name, amen.