David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites … attacked Ziklag and burned it, and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. … When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. —1 Samuel 30:1-4
For sixteen months, David’s Ziklag strategy seemed to be working, but God was about to kick the props out from under him. One day, David and his men came home and saw their city burned to the ground. God allowed Ziklag to burn so David would come face-to-face with Him. It was this very trauma that caused David to return to God and depart this period of disobedience. Each of us, I daresay, has a city of compromise, a Ziklag to which we retreat at some point in our lives. Our Ziklag is a place of supposed refuge that empowers us to continue in disobedience. It’s the place where we devise little systems that give us sinful pleasure and false comfort when God’s will becomes too intense for us. The Lord does not reject us during these times, but He doesn’t approve of our sin, either. He looks for ways to restore us, not destroy us. He devises means so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him (2 Sam. 14:14). But He almost always allows our city of compromise to be burned.
{ PRAYER STARTER }
Teach me, Father, to turn to You before my disobedience destroys my hopes and dreams. When I fall to compromise and apathy, find me and restore me to Your presence. Bring me face-to-face again with You.
Our Ziklag is like a cubbyhole where we escape
from the realm of God’s promises and retreat
into the enemy’s territory where we feel safer.
