Where the part of your life that's senu'ah, the part of your life that you hate, is very often the part of your life that has the most blessing. Look at your toughest child. You will often see so much good come out of your toughest child. Look at a person who has a bad marriage. Either it ends, or so many times, if they get the right help and the right guidance, they can make it an incredible one. Look at someone who's in a bad job. That bad job very often forces them to leave and start something incredible. And the same thing is true with our relationship with Hashem. You know where you have built a relationship with Hashem? Not where everything is great. You build a relationship with Hashem in the part of your life that's tough. The part of your life you don't like. The part of your life that's hard to handle. The part of your life that's frustrating. The part of your life that literally brings you to your knees, the part of your life that makes you beg and ask Hashem, "Why is this happening to me so many times? Why?" That's where the relationship with Hashem comes, and that's where the relationship with Hashem is most powerful, because Hashem says, "In this difficult part of your life, you could connect to me, and you love me now. Our relationship is real."
See, David HaMelech was a king most of his life, and most people had to listen to David HaMelech, and they had to serve him because he was king. But then when he was down, Yoav ben Tzeruyah went and followed somebody else. When David HaMelech was down and running away from his son Avshalom's rebellion, and literally his son was running to kill him, Shimi ben Gera was throwing stones and cursing David HaMelech. When he was down, these two great people jumped off the ship. But there was one man who, at David's lowest point in his life, when he was a fugitive, when it looked like he would never be king again, when it looked like he was only a few days away from being killed by his own son, when the armies of the Jewish people were not with King David, they were against him. There was one man who, in his weakest moment, provided for David and cared for David and gave him food and drink. Who was the one man who was with David in his worst time? Barzilai HaGiladi.
So David told his son Shlomo, "All of my friends, they may be friends because I was king. There's one man I know that was with me when I was down. There was one man I know that when I was in the most senu'ah part of my life, when I was in the most hated part of my life, the most difficult part of my life, there was one man who was there for me then. That man, that man is the person. Put him at your table. He may not be the most famous. He may not be the most powerful. He may not be the most important person in the history of the Jewish people, but he's the only person I know that deep down I can trust."
Hashem says the same thing about his relationship with us. Hashem says, "Let me see how you react when your life is senu'ah. Let me see how you react to the part of your life that makes you feel down, the part of your life that doubts your relationship with Hashem. If you could stay close to me, then that's the best part of your life, and that's the part of your life that shows the relationship with me the most."