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.