Pursue, Overtake, and Recover All!

About this time last year we were going through the hardest season of our lives. It felt as if the promises of God we had received were being stolen from us. During this time, we were wonderfully surrounded by the prayers, love, and encouraging words of our church, as well as many friends around the world.

One such word came from a friend of our son who lives in California. The word simply was this, “Pursue, Overtake, and Recover all!” My spirit leapt as I read this phrase and I searched my Bible until I found the Old Testament story.

In I Samuel 30, David and his men returned to Ziklag only to find it destroyed by fire and their wives, sons, and daughters taken captive by the Amalekites. The men were devastated and wept until they had no strength left. Though David had lost his family as well, the men blamed him for what had happened and they began to talk of stoning him.

David could have made a lot of different choices at this point, but his history with God paved the way for what he chose to do. Scripture says “…but David found strength in the Lord his God”. David knew that God was his only true source of strength and he knew that time in His presence would not only change him, but bring a perspective that would allow him to make wise decisions. After his time with God, David had the priest bring him the ephod, and David inquired of the Lord as to what he should do.

God’s astounding answer to David is as relevant to us today as it was to David and his men in the midst of their crisis. “Pursue them, he answered, “You will certainly overtake them and recover all.”

God doesn’t usually instruct us to run from our enemies. At the least, we are told to stand firm and hide in His shelter while the storm rages, but many times we are then given strategies to face our enemies with the mission to rescue and recover what the enemy has stolen and more.

I say “more” because it is God’s delight and desire that we plunder the enemy’s camp! We are not just to take back what belongs to us, but we are to retrieve even more than was lost. When we believe in a good Father who promises to work all things together for good to those who love Him, we will walk in a grace to see this accomplished. The enemy’s plan to steal, kill, and destroy will certainly backfire on him as we choose like David to strengthen ourselves in God’s presence, and then walk the supernatural path of plundering the enemy’s camp.

Earlier this year I felt God spoke the word “recompense” to me. As I looked up the word in the dictionary I found this meaning:

Recompense – “to make amends to someone for loss or harm suffered”.

We are in a beautiful season revealing the recompense of the Lord. Wherever we have experienced loss—health, finances, relationships, or dreams, God is coming to bring recompense, restitution, and restoration to those things that have been lost or stolen.

The beautiful thing is that He invites us to join Him in this journey. As we follow His direction to pursue, He puts His sword in our mouths and we are instructed to release the truth of who He is and the authority He has given to us His sons and daughters. As we come into agreement with His words and promises, we will see the obstacles fall before us and we will overtake them.

God’s amazing plan to recover all begins to unfold before us as he trumps the very plans the enemy had to bring us down and then uses them for our benefit and good. He is a God who gives:

Beauty for ashes,

The oil of gladness, instead of mourning, and

A garment of praise, instead of a spirit of despair.

He causes us to become oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. (see Isa. 61: 3-4)

When we partner with God to pursue, overtake, and recover all, we will see God touch and heal the broken places of our lives. As He leads us in His triumphal procession we will see His restoration, His restitution, His redemption, and His reward.

This is the richest of plunder.

The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your Savior comes! See His reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.’ ” Isa. 62:11