1 Chronicles 14:13–14: “Then the Philistines once again made a raid on the valley. Therefore David inquired again of God, and God said to him, ‘You shall not go up after them; circle around them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees.'”

September 2nd, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

After David became king, the Philistines attacked Israel and God told David to go out against them. He defeated the Philistines, but they came against Israel again. When David asked God what to do this time, God told David to circle them and come at them from behind rather than engage them in another frontal attack. The signal for David to spring the ambush was a supernatural sound of marching in the treetops.

We notice that David learned an important lesson, one we all need to learn. We must not presume on the Lord. When we have experienced God’s hand moving in our lives, we become vulnerable to this error. We can easily presume that because God did something one way in the past that He will do it the same way in the future. However, it seems God often changes His methods just so we won’t put Him in a box. We of course remember that God is the Creator of the past, that He still creates now, and that He will continue to create down through the immeasurable eons of eternity. He isn’t restricted to one method or technique to accomplish His purposes.

It is said that Michelangelo entered his studio one day to examine the work of his students. As he came to the painting of one of his favorite pupils, he stood and looked at it for a long time. Then, to the utter surprise of the class, he took a brush and wrote one word, amplius, meaning larger, across the canvas. Michelangelo was not rejecting the work, for it showed great skill and was good as far as it went. But the small size of the canvas made the design appear cramped. It needed to be expanded. God sometimes has to write the word amplius across our lives when our spiritual outlook becomes too confined and our vision too restricted by our small faith.

“LORD, please expand our view of how creative You want to be in our lives this day.”