I don't know if you've ever done any boating, but I enjoy being on the water. This week Emily and I were reflecting on how, before we had children, every summer we would go out to the Stillwater area and go canoeing on the Saint Croix River. There was always a great time of adventure and navigation. But have you ever had a less-than-desirable experience on the water? The type of scenario that causes you some fear, anxiety, or perhaps even desperation? I remember having this feeling when I was a young boy. I was probably 7 years old, and our church put on an annual father-and-son camp out. This particular camp out we rented canoes and canoed down a river. Only the night before we left, there had been some storms and a lot of rain, so there were downed trees and the water was moving pretty steadily. As we came around one bend, we saw some canoers in our party in desperation. One of my friends, Ryan, and his dad were trapped next to a log. The log was hanging over on the surface of the water and their canoe was stuck next to it tilted sideways as the water raged underneath the log trying to suck them in. I remember the desperation on their faces, and I was afraid for them. Some of the other canoers in our party went back to try to help them, and they made it out OK, but I'm sure they were very nervous during the rest of the trip.

We've all had feelings of desperation in life. Times when we're not sure what to do, where to turn, or what will happen. What do you do when you face desperation? This is a very important question for us to consider. What we do when we face desperation says a lot about us. Oftentimes, when we face desperation, we are not thinking clearly. We make quick, irrational decisions without much thought. Oftentimes, we are just reacting like a pinball and a pinball machine, bumping back and forth between the burdens of life. How do we find our bearings when we're feeling like that? What we do during those times is so very vitally important period because times of desperation can cause us to make one of two choices. We could take some time, settle our hearts, and rely on God. Or we could start to rely on ourselves. And the decision we make during times like this is absolutely critical to our ability to handle difficult circumstances, whether we are to be successful or be destroyed by them.

We learn this lesson so very clearly from the life of David. As we open our text today, in first Samuel 21,  David is on the run from Saul. He is in complete and utter desperation. Fleeing for his life, looking for his next meal, and trying to create a strategy for what he should do. And as we encounter him in chapter 21, David makes some poor decisions. His desperation leads him to begin to rely on his own wisdom, skill, and abilities. And the result is disastrous in the country of Israel. But as we continue on in the story, we see that David learned his lesson. Rather than trusting his own human reasoning, he began to trust in God and experience a different result. So we're going to look at the life of David from 1 Samuel 21-23 and compare these two episodes in the life of David to see what we can learn from his example. As we do, I want you to consider our big idea for this morning:

Big idea: When desperation leads us to self-dependence instead of God-dependence, it always ends in disaster