You Shall Prevail

UV 1032/10,000 You shall Prevail Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do great things, and also shalt still prevail. So David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place. I Samuel 26 v 25 David had saved the honour of Saul and Israel by killing Goliath. Yet Saul’s spirit was stirred against David out of jealousy at his reputation among the ordinary Israelites. Saul and his men were in pursuit of David when the latter stealthily came into the place where they were sleeping and secreted away Saul’s spear and container of water to prove that he had Saul’s life in his hands and yet had spared him. When Saul learnt of this, he declared David “ blessed” , prophesied that he would “do great things” and that he would “prevail.” A believer may have many struggles in his life with rivals, foes, enemies whose spirit of animosity, jealousy and hostility is stirred against the people of God. But being blessed or touched by God, we would do great things and in the end we will prevail. There is a saying that I was fond of as a young man, “ It is not the triumph that counts but the struggle.” But today I say in the light of much experience from my own struggles, it is not just the struggle that counts but also the triumph. The struggles build our inner strength, patience, faith, courage and character. The triumph in the end enables us to be joyful, hopeful and confident and it further reinforces our faith. Saul was anointed by the prophet of God, Samuel to be the first king of Israel. David did not harm the sleeping Saul and restrained his follower Abhishai also from stretching his hand to strike Saul as he knew that Saul was anointed or chosen by God to be king. David told his follower Abhishai that either the Lord would take Saul or he would die a natural death or die in battle but they should not sin by striking the anointed of the Lord. He did not take the Lord’s law into his own hands but allowed the judgement of God to work itself out in due course and in God’ s time and God’s way. Similarly, we are anointed by the spirit of God. Our cup of anointing is full and in our hands. But we should not get distracted or the enemy will snatch it away in our moment of weakness. The secret to triumphing or prevailing in all our struggles is to “ stay anointed” and to stay the course regardless of the turbulence or the distractions or the resistance. Neither any man or human agency nor representative of the spirit world or principalities and powers of darkness can prevail against us. We need to declare to ourselves that we are “ blessed”, that we shall “ do great things” and that we shall “prevail.” Prateep V Philip