Enter the Wilderness (1 Samuel 23)

Wilderness (noun)

1a - (1): a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings
(2): an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community
b: an empty or pathless area or region: “in remote wildernesses of space groups of nebulae are found” — G. W. Gray 1960
c: a part of a garden devoted to wild growth

2 obsolete: wild or uncultivated state

— Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Lament (1 Samuel 22)

“When men say that they miss combat, it’s not that they actually miss getting shot at—you’d have to be deranged—it’s that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted.” — Sebastian Junger

“The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.” — David Whyte

“For serving God concerns the Frame of our Spirits, in the whole Course of our Lives; in every occasion we have, in which we may shew our Love to his Law.” — William Penn

A Table in the Wilderness (1 Samuel 21)

“Those convinced of the fact of divine reconciliation should thereby be convinced that intellectual conviction is not attained in a sort of spiritual vacuum. One must have bared one’s soul, even reckoned oneself as some kind of sinner... talk of such realities as sin and forgiveness may fail to commend itself to us because it cannot
discover in us a disposition to receive it.” — Stephen Williams

“The existential predicament in which one fears condemnation is quite different from the one where one fears, above all, meaninglessness.” — Charles Taylor

Seeing & Provision (1 Samuel 16:1-13)

“The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us - they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”

— Erich Auerbach

“In the self-assured world of modernity people seek to make sense of the Scriptures, instead of hoping, with the aid of the Scriptures, to make some sense of themselves.”

— Nicholas Lash

"What is God up to?" (1 Samuel 1:1-20)

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship...is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things... you will never have enough. ... Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. ... Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”

— David Foster Wallace, This is Water

Not a Hair (Acts 27)

“Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!”

—Psalm 107:23–31 (ESV)