From The American Gulag: Christian Witness at Christmas

Psalm 142:4, David is crying to the Lord, "I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul." No one cared for this war hero who slew Goliath and saved Israel. David, a man after God's own heart, abandoned by all. In the next Psalm 143:4, David is totally overwhelmed and despondent, "Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate."

I know what David meant when he wrote those verses. I've had everyone important to me betray me. Not even David's favorite son Absolom was loyal. He tried to kill his father, repaying his father's love with hate. And all this betrayal in my life has only heightened my love for my Savior.

When we're facing the enemy & expecting the attack to come from that direction, that's when the brother covering your back may stab you & the brothers to your left and right run away and desert you. And when this happens, I want you to remember that it's not about others, it's about Christ – you'll survive such attacks because of the healing power of YHWH God. We're not Christians because of Joe, or John, or Jim, but Yeshua, the Messiah, the Christ, the King of Kings.

And this point naturally leads into the next point: After your identity-in-Christ is complete (which happens after a length of time) you will be so identified with Christ that even if you wanted to return to the world, it would seem like an alien world. It would be as if I went over to a pygmy tribe & tried to be a pygmy. It's just not happening. So at one point I tried to return & realized, "man it's not going to happen." For instance, I tried to go to a bar, & the bouncer at the door says to me, "You can't come in here--you're a Christian." I still had enough afterglow of the Spirit that I couldn't hide my identity. So I know why David said at PS 84:10 that he'd rather be a doorkeeper for God than with the successful wicked.

Another point to help you run the marathon is that you have to take the good with the bad. Some Christians are going to encourage you with sweet poisons. They may not realize the words they are feeding you will hurt you. When I say sweet poisons, I mean unbalanced simplified notions of how life works, like "God will give you anything you want." and "All your problems are solved by being a Christian." King David (a Christ-like man, a man after Yahweh's own heart felt the same way as Christ on the cross--for Christ used David's words while on the cross. David wanted to build Yahweh's Temple, but was forbidden by Yahweh to build it.

Bad things happen to good people. Read Eccl 9:11 where it says, "time and chance happen to all." Your car may by chance be in the way of a drunk maniac's semi-truck. You'll find rejection, sin & selfishness in the churches. You may even be rejected from even going to some churches because you're an ex-felon. Try that on for size! Take the whole truth & where the whole truth is--that is where you'll find Yahweh God.

The Word says the race is not to the swift (Eccl 9:11) and it isn't. Heb 12:1 tells us to run the race before us. Paul in 2 TIM 4:7 said, "I have finished my course."

So we need a reminder that the Christian life is not a short thing, a sprint, but a marathon....