We Wouldn't Choose the Long Road, but It's Best in the End.

We Wouldn't Choose the Long Road, but It's Best in the End.

1 Samuel chapter 19

David’s life is not taking the course that we would expect, from a human perspective anyway. One would think that after being anointed as the future king, killing the Giant, and marrying the king’s daughter that life would be pretty good. As we saw in chapter 18, life has, instead, gotten a lot more complicated for David. Now in Chapter 19, his life even gets perilous.

Divided Loyalties:

            Jonathan, Saul’s son, but David’s friend hears from his fathers own mouth (Jonathan is a leader privy to such things and trusted by his father) that he wants David dead. Jonathan does the right, but I’m sure not easy thing and chooses God’s will over his fathers by warning David and helping him hide. Siding with the enemy was a risk to himself as well, however, Jonathan has never been afraid to do the right thing, even if the consequences are high. He trusts God more than the circumstances around him. Eventually he reasons with his father and gets him to promise not to kill David, even to acknowledge that David has actually been a tremendous blessing to him and the kingdom. So David returns…

            Can you imagine being David back in Saul’s court at this point? Can you imagine the pressure of having to constantly watch your back, constantly watching the words and actions of those around you and wondering how they might affect your mortality? David doesn’t have to wonder for long and Saul’s penchant for wanting to kill David will no longer be subtle. He actually tries to pin David to wall with the spear next to his throne while David is playing music for him.

            David is not the only one caught in the wake of Saul’s destructive behavior however. Michal, David’s wife and Saul’s daughter, puts a fake body in his bed while David climbs out the window and runs to Samuel. Saul in forcing his own children to side against him and puts them in very difficult political positions.

God works in ways we don't always understand:

            But God is always with David in this section of the narrative. The difficulties that David finds himself in only magnify the fact that God is with him, keeping him save despite the circumstances. His faith and reliance on God grow stronger through the difficulties because God puts him in situations where he has no where to turn but up. God helps David when he is week and helpless. He even works in strange ways that we would never think of. When Saul and his troops come to get David from Samuel’s house they are forced by God to prophesy. Even Saul himself is incapacitated and forced to worship God. He is even humiliated by taking his cloths off. David is delivered in the unlikely, by unlikely means. God gets the glory.

Lessons: We pretty much never like to go through trials in our lives, and we sometimes have no clue why God works the way he does, but we can always know that he is in control. Growth is never easy, knowing God more requires struggle. Faith that is tested becomes even stronger. God puts us in situations where he gets the glory, we should be quick to give it to him and to even see him working in the ways we would not expect. He is God and we are not, after all.

            Sometimes even those who are close to us will challenge our faith in negative way. We need to choose to do what is right and trust God. We need to be more concerned with following God than the fallout we might have with friends or family. Following God is always the right choice regardless of the consequences we may face her on earth. Trust him, believe him, and watch how he works in the unlikely, watch how he works in you.

Living After the Mountain Top

Living After the Mountain Top

1 Samuel 18:6-30

In the fairy tales, after the hero slays the dragon, he is supposed to marry the princess and live happily ever after right? David discovers in this section that, while slaying the giant was an amazing feat that God accomplished through him, it wasn’t exactly his ticket to the good life. While he was now rich and famous, his life was also perilous. David continues to have success in battle and everyone in the kingdom loves him. The text makes it clear that this success is from the Lord, the Lord who was with David and not with Saul. This makes Saul, the king, very, very jealous. Because David is so beloved, however, he can’t just kill him, so Saul plots other ways to get rid of David.

Saul hated David because the Lord was with him, and not with Saul. He decides to follow the time honored mobster tradition of keeping “your friends close and your enemies closer” by trying to get David married off to his daughter. David shows some political savvy by not considering himself worthy of such an honor but eventually Saul comes up with a bride price that makes it hard for David to refuse. Again we see that God is with David as he brings a hundred Philistine foreskins to Saul in exchange for his daughter Michal.

The political intrigue here is messy and in the end no one really wins. Michal is used as a pawn by her father and, even though she loves David, the text never says that David loves her back. She will live a very lonely and tragic life treated more like property than a person. Even though David wins battles and wins the girl, he does so like jumping through the flame only to be rewarded by having to walk through a mine field. He faces enemies on the battle field and on the home front and can trust almost no one.

Lessons:

David’s reward for faithfulness so far is further trial and testing but this time the enemies are more confusing and the right choices are less obvious. We too often find ourselves in situations where the mountain top spiritual experience leads to a disappointing, and even uncertain aftermath. We need to choose to remain faithful to God in these murky times, even when we can’t see the way through, even though we don’t know why God is working the way that he is. Following God will always lead to ultimate blessing but often not immediate blessing. This life is filled with the weedy, messiness of a sinful world, even our own hearts. So we must trust in God and his word to see us through when we can’t see for ourselves.