The Greatest Place in the World

The fact of the matter is, you are in God’s hands. Right now! He has your back. He is watching over you. He is carrying you forward and will bring you to the place that he desires. And at the end of the day, at the time, in the place and under the circumstances of his choosing, he will bring you to the eternal dwellings. God is in control of you. And that, my friend, is the world’s greatest place!

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Chronicles 12:16-17

Other Benjamites and some men from Judah also came to David in his stronghold. David went out to meet them and said to them, “If you have come to me in peace to help me, I am ready for you to join me. But if you have come to betray me to my enemies when my hands are free from violence, may the God of our ancestors see it and judge you.”

The fact of the matter is, you are in God’s hands. Right now! He has your back. He is watching over you. He is carrying you forward and will bring you to the place that he desires. And at the end of the day, at the time, in the place and under the circumstances of his choosing, he will bring you to the eternal dwellings. God is in control of you.

Perhaps you don’t realize that, or maybe you do, but you are not choosing by faith to live in the daily reality of God’s control over your life. If that is the case, you will wrestle with fear and anxiety. You may even struggle with anger and depression. You will be upset over many things, from the circumstances that you perceive are coming against your life to the upheaval that you perceive is ruining the larger world around you. The peace of God that passes all understanding is not guarding your heart and mind. That is what happens to people when they have not surrendered control of their world to the care and competence of Almighty God.

David did! In the long journey from his anointing to be the next king of Israel in the place of the backslidden King Saul—which turned out to be many difficult years living as a fugitive—to his actual coronation, God began to bring a support team around David. Courageous and skilled warriors began to join David, making him a formidable force. But as these fighting men came to him, it was certainly possible that some of them were actually spies from Saul; infiltrators bent on capturing or killing him. After all, as a fugitive on the lam, David still had a price on his head. He was in an exceedingly vulnerable place.

So how did David handle it? How did he stay sane, how did he remain focused, and he did he keep walking an honorable path of obedience as God prepared the kingdom of Israel for his eventual leadership? He trusted, that is what he did. He placed himself in God’s hand, entrusting his health, safety and promotion to the care and competence of the Almighty. Knowing that the timing and circumstances of his advancement were well above his pay grade, he surrendered himself to the purposes of his Great Shepherd.

Did you notice the opening verse? Men from the tribe of Benjamin joined him. If you will remember, Benjamin was the tribe of King Saul. These warriors were relatives of the current king, and perhaps they still carried some family loyalties to their monarch cousin. In letting them into his inner circle, David was risking his very life, and the lives of his family and friends. But take note of David’s trust in God’s protection as he opens the door to these people:

“If you have come in peace and to help me, you are most welcome to join this company; but if you have come to betray me to my enemies, innocent as I am, the God of our ancestors will see through you and bring judgment on you.” (1 Chronicles 12:17, MSG)

When we come to the point where we can leave our health and welfare, our success and wealth, our fame and security with Almighty God, we will have arrived at the greatest place in the world: the hands of God. Again, God already holds us there, but until we acknowledge that he’s got us, and until we surrender our entire being—body, mind and soul—to his care and competence, we will not be fully at peace. But when we do, we will arrive at that place uncommon to most human beings—the place of which David so eloquently wrote in what we call the Twenty-Third Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

There is no better place in the world to be than in the care of the Good Shepherd. And we get there by surrendering our trust into his hands.