Sowing the seeds for victory

“When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” ~ 1 Samuel 30:3,4

If there was ever a darkest moment in the life of David, this was it. He had just been humiliated by the generals of the Philistine army. Then he came back to see his entire house burnt down to ashes, and all his family and those of his men taken captive. It was a moment of despair and sorrow.

Yet, David had enough heart to help another person!

“⁹ David and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Valley, where some stayed behind. ¹⁰ Two hundred of them were too exhausted to cross the valley, but David and the other four hundred continued the pursuit. ¹¹ They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat— ¹² part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.” ~ 1 Samuel 30

I have always been convinced from this passage that when David stopped to help this man, he sowed the seed for his own victory.

It’s easy to get so caught up in our issues and pursuits that we have no time to help anybody else.

The strange reality, however, is that when we take time to help other people make it, what we’re really doing is sowing the seeds for our own victory and recovery.

The mountain climber

In one of his sermons, Pastor Joel Osteen told a story about a professional mountain climber who was climbing a very difficult mountain with his team.

It was very cold and hard for them to even breathe. Along the way about six hours from the top, there was a terrible snow storm, a blizzard, making it extremely difficult for them to keep going.

At one point, this man saw another man on the side of the trail curled up, laying there asleep. He was basically freezing to death. He had a heartbeat, but could barely breathe. His team looked at him and kept going. They said, "If you stop and try to help him, you could lose your own life."

But this man could not leave him there. He told the team to go on, and then he started massaging the man’s arms, rubbing his legs, patting his face, trying to get him to wake up. Miraculously, about fifteen minutes later, the man came to and they walked down the mountain.

He saved the other man’s life.

A doctor examined them both and said to the professional climber who had stopped to help, "Your arms and legs were starting to go numb. You were starting to suffer from frostbite and wouldn’t have made it much further. But when you started massaging this man, it increased your own circulation and probably saved your own life."

Help others win

Let us look for ways to lift others up, to help them succeed.

Do you see someone who is tired and overwhelmed? Is there something you can do or say to sow life and strength into them?

What are you doing to bring out the best in others? What are you doing to increase others and help them succeed?

No feeling is as fulfilling as when someone says, “I succeeded because you helped me succeed.”

When you help someone else win, you are multiplying your own influence. You are increasing your own impact on earth. Like throwing a stone into the water, your life has a rippling effect on the world around you, and when you increase others, you are multiplying your influence.

Remember, there’s always someone you can help succeed. There’s always someone who needs what you have.