Article December 30, 1939 Issue

Practical Encouragement

[Written Especially for Young People]

MABEL SPICER GILL

In the thirtieth chapter of I Samuel it is related that at a time of great distress "David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." Though still in early manhood, David had had ample proof that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble," as he confidently declares in the forty-sixth Psalm.

The narrative records that, upon returning from an expedition, David and his men found that their families had been carried away, their goods stolen, and the city burned. In their grief David's men threatened to stone him, though he was in no way to blame for their plight. Then it was that David "encouraged himself in the Lord his God." He earnestly asked God for guidance, and was led to follow after his enemies with his men. As a result of obeying this divine counsel, they recovered all that had been taken from them. Thus encouragement in God, good, proved practical.

Possibly David's prayer at that time took the form of some of the Psalms which have since encouraged, comforted, strengthened, and healed countless numbers. In "Heroes and Hero Worship" Carlyle says, "David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and warfare here below." Certain it is that, more than mere literary productions of the highest order, they were spiritual nourishment, first strengthening and sustaining the Psalmist himself.

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