This weekend I did Bible study with my kids on 1 Samuel 29–30. And I couldn’t shake how relevant it is to what a lot of us are going through right now.
Quick context: David was running from Saul, who wanted him dead. He’d been hunted from place to place for years — packing up, moving, never comfortable, never settled. So he did something desperate. He moved to Philistia. Enemy territory. A land that worshipped other gods. It was the only place he could find a little peace from being hunted. Achish, the Philistine king, gave him a town called Ziklag. It became home for David and his 600 men, their wives, their children.
Then it all fell apart at once.
David and his men march out to war, get sent home by the Philistine lords who didn’t trust them, and travel for days back to Ziklag — only to find it burned to the ground. Their wives and children kidnapped by Amalekite raiders. Everything they owned, gone. The Bible says they wept until they had no more strength left to weep.
And then it got worse. His own 600 men — his brothers, the ones who bled with him — talked about stoning him. The leader always absorbs the anger when things go wrong, even when it’s not his fault. I wrote about exactly this kind of moment in What Happens When the Piano Falls on You — when everything crashes and the leader is the one left standing in the rubble taking the blame.
I’ll be honest: this year feels like a Ziklag year for a lot of businesses. Deals are harder to close. Suppliers keep raising prices. Clients are shopping around for the cheapest option. It’s a down year. And down years come — no business gets a winning streak forever. I’ve been blessed with fifteen straight green years in a services business that started with zero capital, and I don’t take that lightly. But I also know seasons like this test what you’re really made of.
There are seasons when you feel like you’re wandering in the wilderness, far from where you want to be. David felt that too. I reflected on what that time in the wilderness is really for — and I think this story in 1 Samuel 30 answers that question beautifully.
So here’s what struck me about David.
His mind must have been everywhere — his wives kidnapped, his home in ashes, his men turning on him, a war about to break out behind him. His prayers must have been all over the place. But the first thing he did was what real leaders do: he took action. And the action he took first was to inquire of God. He called for the ephod and asked, “Shall I pursue? Will I overtake them?”
God said: Pursue. You will overtake them and recover all.
So David obeyed. With 400 exhausted men — a third of his force too tired to even continue — against an entire well-fed, celebrating Amalekite army. An impossible situation. And along the way, God used the misfortune of a dying Egyptian slave, abandoned by his master, to lead them straight to the enemy camp. David didn’t look down on the foreigner. He fed him, listened to him, and that kindness became the key to everything.
They recovered everyone. Every wife, every child, all the plunder. Nothing was missing.
But notice what they didn’t get back: their homes. Ziklag stayed burned.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe God let Ziklag burn because He never intended for David to stay in enemy territory. Just a short time later, David was anointed king in Hebron. Ziklag burning wasn’t the end of his story — it was God moving him to where the throne was.
So if you’re in a down year — if you’ve lost contracts, lost clients, lost money, lost sleep — maybe you lost something. But remember what you got back. Remember what you still have. And consider that maybe God is moving you, because where He’s taking you is better than where you were comfortable.
I’ve written before about fear, faith, and what we do when the numbers don’t add up. David’s story at Ziklag is exactly that kind of moment — faith over fear when the math is impossible.
Three things from David at Ziklag:
Inquire of God first. Before you panic, before you defend yourself, before you make a move — pray.
Have faith even when the math doesn’t work. 400 tired men against an army only wins if God said pursue.
Obey. Faith without action recovers nothing.
Hard times come. But I know I have a big God. He took me from nothing — from being poor and hungry — to where I am now. And if He did it before, He can do it again.
Your Ziklag may be burning. But your Hebron might be next.
