It was late at night and I was four episodes deep into a new K-drama. The hero and the heroine had spent the last couple of episodes pretending that they weren’t falling for each other.
And then, oh no! The heroine is suddenly kidnapped!
At that moment I simultaneously rolled my eyes and giggled with excitement. I knew exactly what was coming. It wasn’t original at all. But that’s because it was so delicious:
The hero was going to have no choice but to come and save her.
I know. I know! I know it’s silly and cheesy, but audiences love it because it taps down into something a lot of us desire: we want to feel protected. We want to feel loved and prioritized.
We want to know that if something goes down, the person we love will be at our side no matter what.
What if I told you that certain Someone already exists and is ready to swoop in on your behalf?
Deus Ex Machina
David got to experience that heart-pounding moment of last minute salvation in 1 Samuel 29.
The last we had heard of David, he was living amongst the Philistines, the mortal enemies of his native country of Israel. Not only that, but he was letting the Philistines think that he was loyal to them.
So it should have come as no surprise when the Philistine king, Achish, commanded David to join his army as they marched against—the Israelites.
What was David going to do? The Philistine army got closer and closer to the battlefield. Time was running out. Would David turn against the Philistines? Would he use this fight as an opportunity to take the throne of Israel? Would he sneak away?
The Philistines finally reach their last campsite before the attack on Israel. The tents are pitched. The soldiers begin to turn in for the night. This is David’s last chance. Will David reveal himself as a fraud or continue as a traitor?
But wait! Just in the nick of time, Someone swoops in to save David. And He does it through the Philistines. King Achish suddenly comes to David to tell him he can’t fight with them anymore. The other soldiers don’t trust him enough. He has to go home.
Home! Away from the fight against his people. Away from a year-long lie. Away to await God’s next instructions.
David has been rescued by his Hero.
“I am a God close by.”
Maybe you’re like me, and the image of God coming to rescue you is a foreign one. I imagine God staying back, watching me make my mistakes, and then punishing me for them.
And look, sometimes that is what’s best for us—to deal with the consequences of our sins to the bitter end.
But other times, God steps in and pulls us out of our mess.
But no matter which outcome God allows, stories like this are a reminder: God is there.
God is near by, next to us, in the thick of it. He sees what we’re going through. He knows what our situation is.
He cares, and we are not alone.
The God we love is by our side, no matter what.
What do you think? What do you think David would have done had God not rescued him?
Delicate Pages 
But is God always by our side no matter what? “I will even forsake you, saith the Lord.” Jer. 23:33 “Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence.” Jer. 23:39 Sad, but true.
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Good point. I think it depends on how we define “by our side”. Ideally, we should define it the same way God does. But it can be hard to pin that down. After all, he does say in Deuteronomy 31:6 that He “will never leave you nor forsake you”. He’s even talking to the Israelites, the same nation He’s talking to in the Jeremiah verses you quoted. So what does He really mean? He doesn’t clarify in either of those passages, so I’ve always gone off of context, reconciling the apparent contradiction by saying “well, He will forsake us when we forsake Him, when we push Him away”. That’s what the Israelites eventually do. That seems to be a recurring theme in God’s pronouncements against the Israelites in Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isaiah 8:6-7; Isaiah 30:12-14; Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 15:6). But we also believe in a God who forgives over and over again. We know that He pursued people even though they had rejected Him, like Saul/Paul. And that even after telling the Israelites that He would forsake them, He continued to send prophets and eventually the Messiah to them. So, taking it all together, it seems that God will allow us to suffer the consequences of our sins and our decisions, like I said in the blog. But, He doesn’t stop loving us (Romans 5:8). If we repent, He will forgive us (1 John 1:9). He is always wanting us to come back to Him and ready to welcome us when we do (Luke 15:11-32). That, to me, is staying by my side no matter what.
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