We have just spent a few days examining the plain where David answered God’s call to defeat Goliath. Victorious battles, though, don’t always mean instant acclaim. After defeating Goliath, David spent years of his life hiding from king Saul who out of jealousy wanted to murder him.
David spent many of those years in what Israel visitors today know as the Caves of Refuge, simple places of spare shelter carved beneath overhanging rock. David likely wrote some of his Psalms, perhaps like Psalm 142 in which he describes God as his refuge, from these Caves of Refuge. Can you imagine David seated deep in this cave, thanking God for his security?
The Cave of Adullam, just to the south and west of the Valley of Elah where David defeated Goliath, was a special one of those caves. The Cave of Adullam was one of David's first hiding places from Saul, as David and his family began to gather four-hundred oppressed men to join him. Those men would have been something like today's high school dropouts. Yet those four-hundred men soon grew to six hundred. And nearly anywhere David led those men, he gained support and honor. David would eventually build and lead such a strong community of support that he would win the whole nation Israel to him.
Caves are humble places, like the humble place in which God entered the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Our God is a humble God who seeks out the low places to do his servant-like work. And in those low places, he assembles communities of support, not out of the proud and mighty but out of the low and humble. Do you find yourself looking for refuge in God? Are you at the same time finding a community of support?
